Outlaw Guy
by jadey36
Summary: Guy joins the outlaws and finds happiness, but that happiness is cut short when things go terribly wrong.
1. A Different Life

**Author's Note: **written for the prompt word **genius**.

**Summary: **the sheriff has a scheme, but Guy's about to put a spanner in the works.

**Disclaimer: **Robin Hood belongs to Tiger Aspect and the BBC. No copyright infringement intended. All rights reserved.

* * *

**A Different Life**

"Guy, you're a genius." The sheriff skips around the room, clapping his hands and frightening his caged birds. "And there's me thinking you're good for nothing more than keeping the castle tanner in business."

"I'm a fool, more like," Guy says. "This will never work."

"But you have gained the trust of Hood, yes?" The sheriff stops dancing about. He opens one of the bird's cages and plucks a tiny fluttering thing from its perch.

"Yes, Hood believes I am on his side, that I have turned against you. I doubt he will take me to his camp, though."

"Give it time, Gisborne, give it time." The sheriff tosses the bird in Guy's direction. "Catch."

Guy cups his gloved hands, but the bird flies straight up to a rafter and sits there, flapping its wings.

"Aww," the sheriff says, a mock-sad expression on his face. "Missed the pretty birdie – again."

Guy spins on his heel and strides out the door. The sheriff's oblique references to his failure to capture Marian's heart never fail to irk him.

Two days later, he tells the sheriff that Hood is taking him to the outlaws' camp that very afternoon.

"At last, Gisborne. Nearly time for the big kaboom."

"You're sure this black powder will obliterate them?" Guy asks.

"Yes, yes. I've seen it in action. They, and half their stupid forest, will be blown to smithereens."

"Well, just make sure I'm well clear before you do it."

"On your signal, dear boy. On your signal."

Guy isn't sure he trusts the sheriff, but what else can he do? He has come too far down this particular road to turn back now. With the outlaws dead he will stand a greater chance of attaining everything he desires including, he hopes, the Lady Marian, whom he is certain still carries a torch for her former betrothed, Robin of Locksley, the much-lauded Robin Hood.

* * *

Robin undoes the blindfold. Guy had expected that, of course. He looks around the camp. He's impressed. He'd assumed they'd have some ramshackle affair with leaves for beds and the stars for a roof. Instead, he finds an amazing door that hides sturdy wooden bunks, tables and stools, buckets and barrels and all manner of creature comforts. No wonder Hood and his friends don't mind living the forest. Hell, their beds look more comfortable than his one back at the castle.

"Welcome to the forest," Robin says with a smile.

"Thank you," Guy says, the words feeling foreign on his tongue.

"Let me introduce you to my gang." Robin points. "That's Will Scarlett. He's the genius who built this camp."

Will glances in Guy's direction, nods without smiling and goes back to his whittling.

"Allan you know, of course."

Allan grins at Guy. "Welcome to the other side. It's not so bad here once you get used to it. Of course, the privies are a little on the draughty side. Be careful not to accidentally use poison ivy 'cos it hurts like buggery."

"I will be careful," Guy says.

"I believe you've met Djaq." Robin crooks a finger at the short-haired woman in men's clothing, beckoning her to come closer.

Djaq fingers a small vial hanging between her neat little bosoms and beams at Guy. Guy's lower arm tingles at the memory. Resisting the desire to scratch his arm, he nods curtly.

"John Little," Robin says. "Or rather, Little John."

John's brown eyes bore into Guy as he grips his staff, his knuckles whitening. Guy decides he will keep as far away from the big man as possible.

"And last but not least, Much."

Much is busy at his cooking pit and, on hearing his name, merely waves a spatula in Guy's direction. Guy knows Robin's snivelling manservant can talk for England if he feels like it and prays to God that he keeps all his dealings with Guy as terse.

"So," Robin says. "Supper soon. Rest your legs. Make yourself at home." He slides his bow off his shoulder, unbuckles his quiver and drops it to the ground, along with his sword belt.

"Can I wash up first?" Guy asks.

"Wash up?" Robin queries.

"Before supper, I mean."

"Well, there's the River Trent if you're keen, but it's a good three mile walk from here."

_Perhaps creature comforts is stretching it a bit_, Guy thinks.

After some awkwardness over who is going to sit where, Much hands everyone a bowl of meat stew.

Djaq glances up at the trees and smiles.

"It is _not_ squirrel, all right," Much says, hands on hips.

"Did I say anything?" Djaq grins. "I was merely thinking how nice it would be to have a bit of greenery with our food now and then."

Guy pushes the unidentifiable meat around his bowl, quietly agreeing with the Saracen woman.

The gang eat and talk. At first, they guard their conversation, their eyes constantly flicking to their newest recruit, but after Allan produces a keg of ale, their tongues loosen a little. Not enough to reveal their latest plans, but they are happy to include Guy in their banter. Guy struggles. He's not used to making small talk. Whenever he eats with the sheriff, the only topics of conversation are of catching the outlaws, making money and, most of all, winning England.

Robin is witty and erudite, Djaq warm and friendly. Will says little, but when he does speak, it is with a quiet earnestness that Guy recognises of his younger self, long before he hooked up with Vaisey. Allan is Allan, little changed from when he was 'Guy's man' at the castle. Much speaks whenever he can get a word in edgeways, often ribbed when he does so, but Guy notices Robin glance fondly at him whenever he thinks his manservant is not watching. John remains silent and aloof. The meal passes without incident.

When Robin yawns, stands and stretches, the gang take it as a signal that it is time to sleep and, after saying their goodnights, head for their respective bunks.

Feeling at a loss, Guy remains seated until only Robin remains.

"I'm not sure where to—"

"Will made a bed for you," Robin says. "And Much found you some blankets and a pillow. The weather's mild, so you'll not be cold, but if you need more coverings there's a chest containing some over there." Robin points.

"Thank you," Guy says. "That's more than kind."

"We're a gang, a brotherhood," Robin says. "We look after our own."

"And am I your own, part of your brotherhood?" Guy asks.

"Let's just say you're on trial." With that, Robin says goodnight.

_On trial._ Guy suspects it'll be a while before the outlaws allow him come and go without a blindfold and ponders on how to overcome this particular obstacle. He is still pondering on it as he lies on his bunk, staring at the woven branches overhead and the scrap of night sky peeking through them.

An owl hoots and another answers. Leaves rustle. Much snorts and turns over in his sleep. The bed is as comfortable as it looks, but Guy can't sleep. He sighs. It will take a while to get used to sleeping in a forest. Then he remembers he doesn't have a while, that the outlaws will soon be dead and he, Guy, will return to the castle. The thought should make him happy, but, for some reason he can't fathom, it doesn't.

* * *

Guy wakes the next morning tired and ill at ease. He didn't sleep well, tossing and turning all night as he relived the evening meal, the conversation, the feeling of love and warmth that seemed to flow around the circle of men and one woman.

Tousled-haired and wearing nothing but his smallclothes, Robin says good morning and makes a good-natured quip about Guy's leather pyjamas. Guy's hand moves involuntarily for his sword. Robin laughs and waves him away.

The smell of bacon and eggs wafts through the camp. Djaq is laughing, a high, feminine laugh. He can hear the sound of an axe on wood. Pleasant, homely sounds and smells. Guy smiles. Then he remembers the sheriff dancing around his chambers, grinning a gold-toothed grin, clapping his hands together and with every clap barking, "Kaboom!" His smile disappears.

Guy has every right to be nervous. He's put his life on the line walking into the outlaws' camp alone. Any one of them has good cause to slit his throat. Yet this morning Much hands him breakfast without screwing his face up in distaste and Allan points out a water barrel where he can wash. Will hesitantly hands Guy an outlaw tag, presumably the one he'd been carving last night. Guy stammers out a thank you and loops the tag over his neck, tucking it inside his leathers. Even John mumbles a belated welcome.

"So," Guy says, after breakfast. "It is probably time for me to return to the castle to—"

"To what?" Robin asks.

"To spy, of course. Isn't that why you want me here? I can find out the sheriff's plans, tell them to you."

"You can also tell the sheriff our plans," Robin says. "No castle. You stay with us and prove your loyalty to our cause."

Guy should have known it wouldn't be that easy. "Very well," he says. "What do you want me to do?"

* * *

Collecting herbs and edible fungi does not come naturally to Guy. Several times, he catches Djaq's amused grin as he ferrets among the undergrowth. She clicks her tongue in sympathy, however, when Guy stings himself on a nettle.

"Here," she says, handing him a dock leaf.

Guy holds the leaf between fingers and thumb, dangling it over his red-skinned, lumpy white wrist. "I don't know what—"

"Give it to me," Djaq says, whipping the dock leaf out of Guy's hand. She lightly crushes it between her fingers and then places it, vein-side down, on top of the sting.

"Thank you," Guy says.

"You're welcome," Djaq replies.

Back at the camp, Much serves the evening meal. This time, Guy sits closer to the outlaws and joins in with the conversation more readily. Robin is recounting his childhood in Locksley. Guy finds himself smiling and then actively contesting Robin about some of their antics, saying that Robin was the one who engendered many of their pranks and that he, Guy, had been the voice of reason. Once Guy realises that Robin is mostly pulling his leg, he relaxes and gives as good as he gets. Even John cracks a smile.

It's a balmy evening and the ale flows. The forest is full of birdsong and the smells of earth and leaf and wood-smoke from Much's cooking pit. In the castle, there is always a pervading damp, the fatty tang of the many tallow candles in the halls and a constant whiff of the sewers and garderobes. Guy had never really noticed until he came to the forest.

He goes to bed not expecting to sleep, his mind racing with ways to find a path back to Nottingham and on how to mark a trail that will lead the sheriff to the outlaws' door. He awakes to a sliver of sunlight falling on his face and nothing in his head other than a warm curiosity about what he and the outlaws might do today.

After breakfast, Robin hands him a longbow with the words, "We're going hunting."

"We, as in all of us?" Guy asks.

"No. As in you and me. The others have the village drop offs to do and coin to hand out in Nottingham, it being market day."

Guy thinks about asking Robin if he can go help hand out the coin. If he is clever, he could feign a limp and drag a booted foot on the ground so he can retrace his steps back to the camp. Once in Nottingham he could give the gang the slip, make for the castle and inform the sheriff that it is time for the big kaboom.

"Come on, then," Robin calls, striding out of the camp. Guy has no choice but to follow.

_I could put an arrow in Hood's back,_ Guy thinks, weaving through the trees behind Robin. _With him out of the way, the others will be easy to deal with._ Guy raises the longbow and nocks an arrow.

"Much wants us to catch supper," Robin says, turning to face Guy, "and I'm a little on the lean side."

"I thought I saw a deer," Guy says.

"Best we go catch it then." Robin motions Guy to keep moving.

_Robin knows I lied_, Guy thinks,_ yet he lets me live_. He expects to feel anger. Instead, all he feels is shame. He follows Robin through the trees, the bow dangling from his sword hand.

* * *

"Draw it all the way to the corner of your mouth, like this." Robin nocks an arrow and pulls back the bowstring. He looses. The arrow hits the middle of the circle that Robin has carved onto the trunk of a great oak.

"I am not an archer," Guy says.

"Let me teach you and you will be."

Guy readies his bow.

"Wait." Pressing into Guy's back, Robin places a hand on the arrow, adjusts the angle slightly. "Now," he says.

Guy looses the arrow. It hits the middle of the target. He whoops.

Robin picks up his Saracen bow, nocks and looses an arrow before Guy has time to blink. It splits Guy's arrow in half.

"Now you're just showing off," Guy says.

Robin grins. "I said I'd teach you to be a good archer. I didn't say you'd be the best."

By the time he's finished practising, Guy's arm is hurting and his stomach is growling. When they see the deer, Robin suggests Guy puts his bow practice into good use.

* * *

Robin's manservant just manages not to hug him as Guy drops the deer at Much's feet.

"Supper," Guy says. He reaches inside his leather doublet. "For you," he says, handing Djaq a bunch of herbs and a handful of mushrooms.

When the deer is cooked, Djaq sprinkles it with herbs and scatters a few buttered mushrooms into each of the men's bowls. She touches Guy lightly on the arm. "Thank you. That was very kind."

For some inexplicable reason, Guy feels like crying. That's when he realises the sheriff's big kaboom is not going to happen, not if he can help it.

The next morning, Guy takes Robin aside and tells him about the Greek fire.

Robin laughs. "We've known about that for ages."

"How?" Guy asks.

"Never you mind how. We have our ways."

"If you knew from the start, why did you let me into your camp, risk the sheriff finding out where you live?"

"It was a gamble, I admit, but Marian assured me that if you spent enough time with us you might see there's a different way of living, a better way."

"How very astute of her."

"Was she right?" Robin asks.

Guy nods.

"So," Robin says. "What are you proposing to do now?"

Guy grins. "I think we should let the sheriff have his big kaboom. After all, I'm good with a bow now. I'm sure I can get a flaming arrow through one of the castle windows."

Robin offers Guy a hand, smiles. "Welcome to the brotherhood."

Guy shakes Robin's hand, smiles back. Behind him, in the camp, Djaq laughs; the smell of egg and bacon wafts through the air; someone, Will mostly likely, is chopping wood. It doesn't take a genius to work out that Guy is finally on the winning side.


	2. Fitting In

**Author's Note: **written for the prompt word **colour**.

**Summary: **Guy will do whatever it takes to fit in with the outlaws.

**Disclaimer: **Robin Hood belongs to Tiger Aspect and the BBC. No copyright infringement intended. All rights reserved.

* * *

**Fitting In**

By the time he's been living with the outlaws for nearly two weeks, Guy feels like a changed man.

He smiles more, snarls less. He's learned to ignore Robin's swaggering boasts and occasional childish behaviour, admiring instead the outlaw's tenacity, his care for his people and his strong belief that good will prevail over evil; in this case, the Sheriff of Nottingham, Guy's former overlord.

When Guy asked Robin whether he could carry out his threat to send a flaming arrow into the sheriff's bedchamber, the outlaw gave him a firm no. Instead, Robin and his gang broke into the castle one evening, stole the Greek fire after Guy told them where to find it and had, or so Robin said, destroyed it.

They left Guy in the forest with Djaq, ostensibly to help the Saracen woman restock her herbal medicines. In reality, Guy knew Robin didn't wholly trust him and Robin deemed the diminutive woman's vial of skin-burning liquid, along with her dagger, enough to dissuade Guy from changing his mind about siding with the outlaws and revealing the whereabouts of their camp to the sheriff.

"We cannot risk Prince John marching on Nottingham with an army," Robin explained when Guy asked why they could not keep the deadly black powder, "and kabooming the sheriff would definitely be considered an unnatural death."

Guy conceded Robin had a point and let the matter drop, concentrating instead on working to gain the outlaw's trust so he could forego wearing a blindfold every time he left the camp to help the gang with some task or other.

To be honest, it wasn't difficult to warm to Robin and his men despite their, at times, irksome behaviour.

Little John, for all his gruffness and refusal to talk to Guy other than to utter the odd grunt, or to grudgingly offer up a simple courtesy, proved to have a heart as big as his person.

One day, having just finished using the 'loo with a view', as Allan called the slit-trench privy, and having successfully avoided wiping himself with poison ivy or a bunch of leaves covered in resident bugs, Guy had come across Little John cupping a ball of chirping feathers in his hands. Watching the big man stroking the quivering bird's head and back and crooning soft words over it, reminded Guy of the sheriff and his twittering caged birds.

For a fury-filled moment, Guy wanted nothing more than to snatch the tiny creature from John's tending hands and crush it between his gloved ones. "There," he would snarl at the sheriff, as he plucked a madly fluttering bird from its perch. "This is what I think of your stupid birds and your ill-disguised digs at my failure to capture the Lady Marian's heart." _And this_, he thought, mashing his hands together, _is what I'll do to your stupid bald head if I'm lucky enough to get my hands on you. Squish, crunch, you're dead._

"It's fallen from the nest," Little John told him, forgetting for a moment that he was avoiding talking to the newest member of Robin's gang, the hated Guy of Gisborne. "Poor thing is helpless. I'll take it back to the camp. Maybe Djaq can tend to it." With that, John tucked the tiny bird into his shirt and strode away, leaving Guy with a bitter taste in his mouth for wishing harm on a defenceless creature and a strong desire to go charging into the castle, risking life and limb, in order to remove the sheriff's head from his body.

Like John, Will Scarlett loosened his tongue as the days wore on, though he had yet to bestow Guy with a smile. Djaq continued to offer Guy the hand of friendship and whenever Robin was not around, he stuck to her side more or less continually. She even removed her vial after Guy repeatedly stung and scratched bare arms in order to reach a particular herb for her. He got on well enough with Allan, though Allan's ribbing sometimes wore on him. Much mostly avoided him. This suited Guy well, although the dark scowls Much shot at him when Robin wasn't looking were enough to give Guy heart palpitations every time he took a bite of food. However, after noticing how little thanks the man got for his cooking, Guy decided the best way to ensure Much slipped nothing fatal into his food was by praising him. It worked a treat. Not only did Guy get a smile with every plate of breakfast, lunch or supper, he also got a bigger portion than everyone else did.

Yes, the gang were warming to him, and he to them.

* * *

A branch snaps and Guy whirls around, gloved hand grasping for the sword Robin still won't let him wear.

"Easy Giz," Allan says, raising his arms in self-defence, forgetting Guy is unarmed but for a small paring knife that Guy managed to whip from Much's kitchen when Robin's manservant wasn't looking. "You've been gone a goodly while and Robin was getting worried about you, thought maybe you'd got lost."

"Easily done," Guy says, letting his hands fall to his sides. "All these damn trees look the same. If it weren't for the distinct perfume of your dugout privy, I'm sure I wouldn't know where I was."

"Yeah, well, Robin sent me to find you."

"To keep an eye on me more likely."

"Nah. No one would be so stupid as to go wandering around the forest after dark, not even you." Grinning, Allan turns and starts heading back towards the camp, whistling so Guy will know in which direction he's headed.

Several paces on, Guy realises that Allan has just insulted him. "Squish, crunch, you're dead," he mutters, grinding his boot into the leaf-strewn forest floor.

His annoyance towards Allan, as well as the lack of sheltering walls behind which to take a leisurely crap, soon dissipates as he sits with the outlaws to eat a late supper.

Smiling at her greenery-topped meal, Djaq compliments Guy on his newly acquired skill of finding and presenting her with edible fungi and herbs. Will offers to teach Guy how to carve a simple design on wood for which Guy readily thanks him (perhaps Marian will be moved by a hand-fashioned gift more than she was by bought trinkets and hair ornaments, though the horse he had given her had come close to capturing her friendship if not her heart). Much is too busy stuffing his mouth to mumble more than the odd word. Even John, no doubt upon Robin's insistence, manages to make small talk with Guy.

As he eats, a feeling of contentment balloons large in Guy's chest; it's like sitting with family, or at least that's what Guy imagines it would feel like if he had a family.

After the meal, Robin takes Guy to one side.

"Tomorrow there is a chest-load of taxes making its way through the forest, along the Great North Road. We're going to take it and I want you to be with us when we do."

"And what exactly do you expect me to do?" Guy asks. "Shout threats perhaps? Throw rocks at it? In case it's escaped your notice, I have no weapons."

"I admit a paring knife is no match against swords or bow and arrow." Robin holds out a hand. "I think Much would like it back."

Guy pulls the knife out his boot and slaps it into Robin's open palm.

"What did you think you were going to do with it?" Robin asks. "Peel us to death."

"I dislike having no weapons. I thought you trusted me."

Without answering, Robin points to the far side of the camp. Leaning against a tree stump is a broadsword, along with a hunting knife and a brown leather belt and scabbard. "Yours, if you want them. Make sure you only use them if there is no other way. Robin Hood and his men don't kill."

"Ha! If your peasants only knew the truth of it."

Robin grabs Guy's wrist, squeezes hard. "We do not kill," he says, his blue eyes boring into Guy's own. "Do you understand?"

"Yes. I understand."

Robin lets Guy's wrist go. "Good." He looks Guy up and down.

"What?" Guy asks.

"Your leathers. They need to go."

"Why?"

"Well, for starters, they're not very useful when you're being chased through the forest, as undoubtedly will happen at some time or another. You need to blend in with the trees and foliage and, right now, you blend in about as well as a black cat standing on snow."

"I like my leathers."

"Also," Robin continues. "They mark you out as the sheriff's former master-at-arms and my peasants will find it hard to believe you've changed sides if you continue to dress as you did in the castle."

Much as he will hate to part with his leathers, Guy knows Robin is right.

"I will go to Nottingham to—"

"No need," Robin interrupts. "Allan's already swiped some clothes for you."

Guy looks towards his new sword, fingers twitching.

Robin laughs. "Don't worry. I told him to thieve something suitable. It isn't a jester's outfit if that's what you're concerned about. They're on your bed."

"Thank you," Guy says.

"And your hair is a bit on the long side. Maybe you could—"

"The hair stays," Guy says, rounding on Robin.

"Whoa." Arms held out in supplication, Robin steps back a pace. "It was a joke. I rather like your hair. It reminds me of Marian. Come to think of it, it's longer than Marian's since the sheriff hacked hers off."

Guy strides towards his bunk, blinking back sudden tears. Robin Hood, Guy realises, can be cruel when he chooses to be.

* * *

When Guy reappears, Allan greets him with a snigger, Much with a snort and Will with a smile, the first he's given Guy.

"What's so funny?" Guy asks, wondering if he's fastened the dark brown leather jerkin incorrectly or perhaps has the breeches on the wrong way round; with lacings at both the front and back, it is hard to tell.

"Nothing's funny," Robin says, shooting Allan and Much a warning glare. "It's just we're not used to seeing you in any colour other than black, that's all."

"I do not like these clothes," Guy says, fidgeting. "They feel too loose, especially the breeches."

"Not being funny, but they're perfect." Allan cups a hand over his crotch, jiggles it. "Every man needs a bit of breathing space, so to speak."

"I'll give you breathing space," Guy says, "by taking your head off your neck if you say one more word about my clothing."

"With what?" Allan asks. "A vegetable knife?"

Guy strides over to the belt and weapons Robin pointed out earlier. "I think you'll find this is mine." He picks up the broadsword and points it in Allan's direction.

"Nah, I swear, Guy. You look great. Honestly."

"Robin?" Guy asks, sheathing the sword.

"You look fine."

"Djaq?"

"Like a true outlaw," she says.

"Yeah," Allan says. "And I reckon if you just braided a bit of that hair of yours, round the front like, it'd complete the look. There's a cute village girl who wears—"

Guy unsheathes his sword. Allan turns and flees.

Sheathing his sword yet again, Guy proceeds to walk around the camp in order to get the feel of his new clothes. He has to admit, Allan may have a point about the breathing space thing. The thought of his aerated balls has Guy's cock twitching, which would have been fine in itself if Marian hadn't chosen that moment to come calling.

"What happened to the warning system?" Robin asks Much, as Marian dismounts her horse and walks towards them.

Much shrugs.

Guy can only assume Marian has been to the camp enough times to know how to avoid setting off the clanging alarm; the thought does not please him. It is enough, however, to tame his free-to-roam genitals.

"My lady," Guy says, striding towards Marian and giving her a small bow.

"Guy! I didn't recognise you."

"I think that's the general idea."

"Marian, is something amiss?" Robin asks. "Your father, or..."

"My father is quite well, Hood, though it is kind of you to ask. It is of another matter I came to talk to you."

Seizing Robin's arm, Marian leads him over to the far side of the camp, out of earshot. Guy wonders whether her addressing Robin as Hood might mean he is wrong about her still carrying a torch for the outlaw.

He watches as Marian and Robin talk. Although he cannot hear what they are saying, it is clear from their arm gestures and scowls that they are arguing. _All the better for me,_ Guy thinks. He's no fool. He knows Marian more than likely colludes with Robin when it comes to helping the poor folk. It wouldn't even surprise him if she were in fact the mysterious Night Watchman. None of this bothers Guy. He is, after all, one of them now. But the fact that Marian continues to live in the castle rather than here in the forest must surely be for reasons other than looking after her weak-willed father or a need for womanly things. After all, the Saracen girl lives and works with the outlaws happily enough and Marian is no fragile bird, of that Guy is certain.

Robin says something to Marian that makes her slap his arm and turn her back on him. She walks towards Guy, tossing the words "Grow up," over her shoulder as she does so.

By the time she reaches him, she is smiling. "I am glad you have taken to this life, Guy. I cannot tell you how much it pleases me to know that you have escaped the clutches of that tyrant of a sheriff. These men, not forgetting Djaq, of course, are the most generous and brave men you will find in all of England. Just don't let Hood talk you into doing anything foolish; I know what he's like."

"I won't," Guy says, gazing into Marian's eyes and noticing how similar in colour they are to Robin's eyes.

"Will you stay for supper?" Djaq asks Marian. "I think you'll find our table more than bearable now that Guy is helping me glean the forest for food items that don't live in trees."

"Thank you, but no. I have to get back to my father. I came to tell Robin that there is another contagion in Clun and the sheriff is talking about putting the village under quarantine again. The villagers will need his help."

Marian turns back to Guy and says, "Good luck." Then quietly, so no one else can hear. "I understand the change of clothes, but I must say you look far more handsome in black." She lightly kisses Guy's cheek.

The sudden twitch in his roomy breeches has him wishing he were still wearing his tight-fitting leathers. "Thank you, Marian."

He watches as Marian mounts her horse and rides out of the camp, his gloveless hand stroking the cheek touched by her lips. He is happy, happier in fact than he can ever remember being. Not only has he joined what he hopes will be the winning side, but also it seems he may still be in with a chance of winning Marian.

Guy strides towards the trees on the pretence of needing to relieve himself. Despite Marian's preference for Guy's black leathers, he's suddenly glad of his new clothes. His leather breeches were such trouble to work a hand into.


	3. Falling Apart

**Author's Note: **written for the prompt word **fair**.

**Summary: **Guy's happiness receives a knock back.

**Disclaimer: **Robin Hood belongs to Tiger Aspect and the BBC. No copyright infringement intended. All rights reserved.

* * *

**Falling Apart**

_It isn't fair,_ Guy thinks, as the white-hot pain shooting through his leg sends him crashing back onto the forest floor. _My first real act of being an outlaw and I'm cut down before Robin has nocked his first arrow. _

Dizzy and nauseous, aware that his roomy outlaw breeches are soaked with more than the blood oozing from his right thigh, Guy painfully turns his head. He can see through the leaves partially obscuring his view that Robin and his gang are winning the fight, despite one of their number, namely him, being out of action.

A handful of the guards escorting the cart carrying the chest of tax monies along the Great North Road are on the ground, either dead – _so much for Robin's don't kill doctrine_ – or knocked out, while the other handful are battling it out with the outlaws.

Robin, Guy sees, has discarded his Saracen bow in favour of his scimitar and is presently slashing at a burly, lumbering guard, a grin on his face. After spending the past two weeks living with the outlaw, Guy believes he now knows Robin well enough to say with confidence that Robin is actually enjoying himself despite the seriousness of the occasion. Likewise, Allan seems to be having a ball, dodging and weaving, wielding his two swords as if he were a performer at a circus.

Djaq, that soft-spoken, kind-hearted scrap of a girl, always making weird pastes and assuring Guy that Robin will give him every chance to prove he can become a good man, screams a blood-curdling scream and runs one and then another guard through with hardly a backward glance. It makes Guy realise there is more to her, more to all of the outlaws in fact, than he had first thought.

John thumps a further guard with his staff, whirls round ready to take on another attacker. But there is no one left, as the final two guards, sensing the battle lost, drop their swords. One hurls himself onto a frightened horse's back while the other leaps into the now empty cart, grabbing the reins of the harnessed horse.

"The sheriff will hear of this," the guard in the cart shouts, tugging viciously on the reins in an effort to get the spooked horse to move.

"I truly hope so," Robin says, nudging a sack of stolen coin with his boot and grinning. He lifts a hand and waves as the cart finally lurches forwards and trundles off in the direction of Nottingham, without its precious load.

Danger over, Guy rolls onto his back. He stares at the patches of blue sky between the leaves and branches, fervently hoping the gang don't forget about him in their euphoria over seizing a large quantity of coin.

* * *

He wakes to find he is on his bunk, naked apart from the outlaw tag Will made him, a pair of braies – Robin's judging by their tightness – and a swaddling of bandage around his upper right thigh. He can hear a tangle of excited shouts and thumps: the gang rejoicing. Mixed in with the whoops and backslapping, he can make out Djaq's high feminine laughter.

Guy smiles; they didn't forget him. Indeed, Robin's hefty shove, spilling Guy into the undergrowth after the guard rammed a sword through his leg, almost certainly saved his life. _Now,_ Guy realises, _he owes Robin gratitude not only for letting him join his gang when the outlaw has every reason to run Guy through the first chance he gets, but also for saving his life. _Guy finds the thought an unsettling one, but has no more time to dwell on it as Djaq enters the sleeping area and crouches next to his bed.

"Awake at last," she says, giving him a warm smile. "How do you feel?"

"Like someone who got on the wrong side of the sheriff and ended up in his fucking Festival of Pain; only, this time, his ridiculous contraptions actually worked."

"The cut was deep," Djaq says, eyeing Guy's wounded leg (at least, that's what he assumes she is studying so intently). "You lost a lot of blood. I made many stitches. It was good you soon lost consciousness. I can swear with the best of them, but you—"

"Apologies," Guy cuts across her. He props himself up on his elbows. "I'm not used to being around women."

"Perhaps that is why you fail," Djaq says.

Guy can't tell whether she's being serious or jesting with him. _That's the trouble with these damn outlaws, _he thinks. _Half the time, I never know whether they're being serious or not, especially Robin._ Guy closes his eyes, feigning tiredness. He hates not being able to work out multifaceted people. At least with the sheriff, he always knew where he stood.

Thinking of the sheriff makes Guy shiver. If he was in trouble before for consistently failing to capture the outlaws, how much more trouble would he be in now, should the sheriff apprehend him? A festival of pain wouldn't even come close to what the sheriff will do to him once he realises Guy is not lying in a ditch somewhere, but has joined the outlaws, the bane of Sheriff Vaisey's life.

Guy squints through fluttering eyelids and sees that Djaq is gone, doubtless believing he has fallen asleep. He's not sure what the hour is, but from the cooking smells drifting his way, he guesses it must be close to evenfall. A growl in his stomach reminds him that he hasn't eaten since breaking his fast this morning and, shifting painfully, he slides his legs off the bed, one at a time, and pushes himself upright.

He takes two stumbling steps and, quietly cursing his injured leg, clutches a timber beam. Walking to the supper table is obviously out of the question.

He pushes a shielding curtain aside, intending to alert one of the gang to his predicament. Instead, he finds himself crumpling to the ground, breathing fast and feeling sick. Marian is in the camp, and this time it's not to tell Robin about the great unwashed of Clun, not unless that involves kissing Hood soundly on the mouth.

Guy twitches the curtain aside again, in the vain hope that he'd been mistaken, that the wine Robin had poured down his neck as John and Allan held him and Djaq cut away his blood-soaked breeches, had dulled his mind. But no. Marian is still in Robin's arms and they are still kissing.

Guy turns around and crawls back to his bunk. He wants to kill Hood. He wants to kill Marian. He wants to die.

_Lepers, Gisborne, lepers. _The sheriff's words come back to him as he pulls himself up onto his bunk and buries his face in his pillow.

"He is asleep," Guy hears Djaq telling Much, "but we should keep some food for him for when he wakes. He will be hungry."

_When I wake, I will find a sword and run Hood through,_ Guy thinks, grinding his teeth together in an effort not to cry out in torment. Except he can't. Because Robin saved his life today, and because deep down Guy knows Marian loves Robin Hood, has probably always loved Robin Hood. Guy just didn't want to see it, to believe it could be true.

He recalls the way Robin showed him how to shinny up to the upstairs windows of Locksley, should any shinnying be required of him as Guy takes part in more and more of Robin's thievery. Locksley Manor and Knighton Hall – before he burned Knighton Hall down, that is – are similar in design. _That's how Marian got that necklace back,_ Guy realises. _Robin was there. Somehow, he got hold of it and passed it to Marian through the window. _Suddenly, many things are starting to make sense. Guy wishes to God they didn't.

He rolls onto his back, stares at the interlacing branches above his head, forming the roof of the sleeping quarters where the gang, and now he, sleeps. _I've been a fool,_ he thinks, warm tears sliding from the corners of his eyes and plopping onto his pillow. _Marian doesn't stay at the castle for her weak-willed father, or for the comforts, such as they are, of a walled and turreted stronghold. She stays there because it suits her purpose, suits Robin's purpose. Because she is the spy, the one who listens at the sheriff's keyhole, who coaxes him, Guy, into telling her more than he should. She is the one who tells Robin everything he needs to know so the outlaws can stay one step ahead of the sheriff. _

"You are in great pain," Djaq says, hurrying to Guy's side, spilling bread and ale in her haste to tend to him.

Guy simply nods, unable to tell her the real reason for his tears.

"Let me remove the bindings, take a look," Djaq says. "I am sure I cleaned the wound well, but there is still every chance of infection." She makes to untie the strips of linen. Guy swats her hand away. Djaq cradles her batted hand, glares at him. "What was that for?"

"I am sorry," Guy says, guiltily remembering all the kindnesses Djaq has shown him these past two weeks, knowing she is not to blame for Marian's deceitfulness. "I don't like being meddled with, that's all. The pain is diminishing now. I think I must have been lying awkwardly."

"Apology accepted," Djaq says, picking up the food and drink. "Would you like to sit, eat and drink something?"

Guy wriggles up the bed, leans against the woven branches behind him. Taking his anger out on Djaq is not the answer. He wants to make Marian and Robin pay for their lies, but starving himself is not going to accomplish that. "Thank you," he says, accepting the mug of ale and a hunk of bread.

"You're welcome," Djaq says, smiling as she watches Guy take a nibble of bread, followed by a mouthful of ale.

Fresh tears well in Guy's eyes. _Why couldn't she be Marian? _

"You _are_ in pain," Djaq says, seizing the opportunity to fiddle with Guy's bandages, his hands presently occupied holding the drink and bread.

_Yes_, Guy thinks. _I am in the worst kind of pain, but you won't find it only in my sword-skewered leg._ This time, he lets Djaq unwrap his bandages, clean the already clean wound and redress his leg. He puts down the bread, knowing he will not be able to get any more of it past the painful lump in his throat. He does manage to drink all the ale, though, and asks Djaq if she might fetch him some more.

"Of course," she says, "but I will add water this time. You seem in less pain now and there is no need to succumb to drunkenness, especially not on an empty stomach."

"No water," Guy snaps.

"Yes, water," Djaq says, her face stern. "When it comes to all things medicinal in this camp, I am the one who has to deal with it and I will not waste my time cleaning up the contents of your stomach."

"Why not?" Guy thrusts the empty mug into Djaq's hand. "After all, you cleaned up my—"

"Do not," Djaq says, dark brown eyes glinting in anger, "think you can treat me like your slave just because—"

"You are the infidel, a Saracen," Guy interrupts. "You are lucky to have your life."

"What is the matter with you?" Djaq asks. "I realise you've been hurt, but that is no reason to—"

"You know _nothing_ of my hurt, woman." Guy turns away from her. Djaq lays a placating hand on his bare shoulder. He flinches.

"Something is troubling you," she says. "Something more than your injured leg. What is it? Maybe I can help."

"You cannot help."

"I am good at listening. Maybe you could—"

A horse whinnies and Robin shouts, "Whoa there."

Guy turns over, stares intently at Djaq. "Robin gained himself a horse as well as that chest of coin, did he?"

"The guards had horses. Robin—"

"Spare me your lies." Guy sits and swings his legs off the bed, making Djaq scrabble backwards. "I was awake the whole of the time I was lying in those thorny fucking bushes. I know there were no horses left when we moved off. If there had been, then John and Allan wouldn't have needed to half-drag me back to the camp."

Djaq lowers her eyes. "The horse is Marian's. She came to speak with Robin."

"About what?"

"I do not know," Djaq says, coming to her feet and retrieving the empty mug. "I do not listen to their private conversations."

"No," Guy says. "I bet you don't."

"I will fetch your ale," Djaq says, turning and pushing the curtain aside.

Guy thinks about going after her despite the pain in his leg. He thinks about dragging her back to his bunk and telling her exactly what he believes the nature of Robin and Marian's private conversations are. _Honeyed words, roaming hands, lips and tongues, skin on skin._

Guy howls in frustrated agony – let them think his leg pains him – and falls back onto his bed. His happy, contented world, this new world he has become part of, is shattered, blown to smithereens. Marian loves Robin Hood. True, she might think highly of Guy for leaving the vile sheriff, for becoming the good man she wants him to be, but what good is that? One day, and probably quite soon knowing his luck, Guy will find himself dangling at the end of a rope when one of Hood's moneymaking schemes goes wrong, or the next blade will find his chest rather than his leg. He is sure Marian will speak fondly of him were he to die in such a manner, but that is little comfort to him in the here and now.

_It isn't fair,_ Guy thinks, rolling onto his stomach and burying his face once more into his pillow, letting the tears come. _It just isn't fair._


	4. Back to Black

**Author's Note: **written for the prompt word **stagger**.

**Summary: **his contented life with the outlaws in tatters, Guy's thoughts turn to revenge.

**Disclaimer: **Robin Hood belongs to Tiger Aspect and the BBC. No copyright infringement intended. All rights reserved.

* * *

**Back to Black**

His bandaged leg throbbing and burning, Guy inches his way under his narrow camp bed and retrieves his dirt-flecked leathers. He has no choice: Djaq threw the blood-soaked, piss-stained breeches in the fire after Robin cut them off him, along with the muddied, torn shirt. Apart from the uncomfortable braies Much dug out for him, – Robin's – Guy has no clothes here at the camp other than his discarded leathers, the leathers he swore he would never wear again. He's not sure why he kept them; possibly to remind himself of the man he once was and hoped never to be again now that he had joined the outlaws.

Guy grimaces. After the roomy outlaw breeches his leathers feel tight, restricting, no room to breathe. He can hardly believe how comfortable he once felt in them.

He dons his black undershirt and doublet, fumbles with belt and buckles, heart fluttering in his chest, the image of Marian kissing Robin still burning behind his teary eyes.

"Does he want bacon?" he hears Much ask. "Only Allan's taken it, so if he does he'll just have to—"

"No," Djaq says, sharply. "Just ale. I will fetch it."

_I will miss her,_ Guy thinks, fastening his sword belt and pulling on his tight-fitting gloves. _And I will miss being with people who do not treat me like some whipping boy. _The thought of returning to Sheriff Vaisey – he can't stay here, not now, and where else can he go? – fills Guy with anger and sadness and more than a little fear.

_I will concoct a story about being taken hostage,_ he thinks, glancing around for his heavy black boots and finding them missing. "They are filled with blood and will need cleaning," he recalls Djaq saying, as John and Allan held him down while Robin cut away his ruined breeches and chided him for moaning about an 'itty-bitty cut to his leg'. _Let's see if you call it an itty-bitty cut,_ Guy thinks, _when I cut your fucking heart out the way you've cut mine out._

He decides to forget about the boots. They will not save him in any event. The moment he has run Hood through, the gang will give chase and, boots or no boots, he knows he has little chance of escaping the outlaws in a forest they know so well and in which he continually finds himself lost.

Lying on his bed, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes, wetting his pillow, Guy had listened to Marian and Robin quietly talking. Had Marian come to give Robin Hood yet another tip-off? He had no way of knowing. If he dragged himself out there and asked her, she would lie. And Robin would lie. Guy hated liars. _My mother used to lie to me about my father, and Isabella used to lie to my mother about me._

Guy knuckled his eyes, sat. To hell with his earlier vow not to kill Robin because Robin saved his life during the ambush. This was all Hood's fault; he should have died in the Holy Land; he should not have returned to Nottingham. Without Robin around, Guy would have won Marian's heart, he is sure of it.

He picks up his sword but makes no move to sheathe it.

"What are you doing?" Djaq asks, pushing the curtain aside, a mug of ale in one hand, Guy's outlaw tag in the other. "You should be resting."

"I don't think so." Guy's gloved fingers tighten around the hilt of his sword. _I failed to bloody it during the ambush on The Great North Road, but by God I'm going to bloody it now. _

"I've brought your ale," Djaq says, glancing anxiously behind her. "And this," she says, offering Guy the outlaw tag Will fashioned for him.

Guy snatches the tag from her hand, flings it aside.

Djaq steps back a pace, confusion in her deep brown eyes. "I don't understand."

"Oh, I think you do. I think you understand very well. After all, I made my feelings for Marian plain enough. How often did she come here to regale you all with her stories about pathetic, love-struck Guy trying, yet again, to court her? Had a good laugh over it, did you? What's Guy of Gisborne, who has no Gisborne, given her now – another hair bauble, a winged stallion, a fucking great gold-plated house?"

"Guy, you need to calm down. Here." Djaq offers him the mug of ale. "Sit. Drink."

He swats it from her hand.

"Something has happened?" Djaq says, wiping a splash of ale from her cheek and edging towards the closed curtain.

"Yes, something has happened. I have woken up. I have realised that I have been played for a fool."

Marian's horse whinnies. A heartbeat later, Guy hears the click of her tongue, a jingle of bridle. Marian is leaving the camp. Good. Despite his bitter disappointment at her duplicitous behaviour, he will be glad to spare her witnessing his bloody revenge on her former – possibly not former judging by their passionate embrace – betrothed.

He takes a step towards the curtained doorway.

"I am not going to let you do anything foolish," Djaq says, stepping directly in front of him.

"Believing I could trust you thieving outlaws, that was foolish. When were you going to tell me, eh? At their wedding reception? During the wetting of their first baby's head?" Guy takes another step.

"Please," Djaq says, arms outstretched in entreaty. "Do not undo all the good you have done these past two weeks. Do not—"

"Collect your herbs without me, woman. Now get out of my way."

"Robin is too quick for you," Djaq says. "He will have an arrow nocked before you are halfway to him and your wounded leg will slow you down."

Djaq is right.

"Then," Guy says, heart thumping painfully in his chest, "he will have to come to me."

Guy raises his sword, slashes; once, twice, mere inches from Djaq's face. _She will cry out in alarm, _he thinks, _and Robin will come running. _Marian is gone. Allan, Will and John also left the camp some time ago to carry out the village drops, telling Robin they would eat on the road. Apart from Robin and Djaq, the only other member of the gang still in the camp is Much; busy at his fire pit, armed with little more than a ladle. And Djaq is a girl; one hefty shove and she'll be down on the ground, out of harm's way.

Djaq stares calmly at Guy, unmoving.

Guy recalls her blood-curdling cry during the ambush, the way she plunged her sword into one and then another of the sheriff's guards. He realises it's going to take more than empty threats to get her to play his game.

He lunges, intending to rip her undershirt from neck to waist, spilling her tiny bosom.

Djaq neatly sidesteps, yells, "Robin! To arms! Guy is going to—"

"You stupid Saracen bitch!"

He stares, wide-eyed, as Djaq staggers towards the wooden roof support he had clung to earlier, when his only cares had been a painful leg and a food-hungry belly.

"Djaq?" Robin cries.

"Do not," Djaq says, wrapping an arm around the wooden beam, while pressing her free hand to her stomach, "let this undo all the good work that we have done, that you have done...Robin will forgive you...he will..." She glances down at the blood seeping through the fingers of her small hand; the hand that delicately dabbed Guy's nettle-stung wrist with a dock leaf, that gently bathed and stitched his wounded leg and rested briefly on his sweat-beaded brow as John and Allan eased him onto his bed.

"Oh." She chuckles, as though she is privy to some joke that only she knows. "I have never tried to put myself together again." Her eyelids flutter and she slides down the wooden beam, smearing it with blood.

Mouth chalk-dry, belly cold and hollow, Guy turns and blunders past unmade beds, upturned barrels and various bits of weaponry. He slams through the little-used door at the back of the camp, knocking his sword from his hand as he does so. '_By God I'm going to bloody it now'. But not her blood,_ he thinks. _I never meant it to be her blood._ He leaves the sword on the ground, no time to retrieve it now.

Ignoring the waves of white agony flowing from his injured leg, he stumbles up the narrow track that leads to the camp's privy and the thick forest beyond.

He is frightened. He doesn't want to die. He wants to live. He wants Robin Hood dead. He wants to marry Marian. Instead, he is going to end up face down on the ground, his stockinged feet ripped to shreds by root and rock, an arrow in his back.

His world, this new world of dappled sunlight, of myriad greens, of warm smiles and kindly laughter, has turned to one of darkness and despair, back to black.

Guy hears Robin's anguished cry and runs faster.


	5. A Glimmer of Hope

**Author's Note: **written for the prompt word **a second chance**.

**Summary: **On the run in an ever-darkening forest, Guy's fear turns to hope when he discovers somewhere to spend the night.

**Disclaimer: **Robin Hood belongs to Tiger Aspect and the BBC. No copyright infringement intended. All rights reserved.

* * *

**A Glimmer of Hope**

"_Robin will forgive you...he will..." _

The image of Djaq staring in horrified amazement at the blood seeping between her fingers burns behind his stinging eyes.

_Robin will not forgive me,_ Guy thinks, stumbling up an incline, ignoring the cutting rocks and branches underfoot, desperate to put some distance between himself and the camp, all the while knowing he doesn't stand a chance of outrunning Robin Hood; not with his injured leg and no boots, not even uninjured and booted. Robin knows this forest like the back of his hand and Guy has no idea where he is. And night is coming on.

_Any moment now, Robin will catch up with me and plant a deadly shaft of steel and ash into my back._ Guy feels a tingle between his shoulder blades, where the arrow will hit.

A low hanging branch smacks into his face, stabbing an eye, scraping his cheek. He blunders on.

He manages a few more yards before he stubs a stockinged toe on an exposed tree root. The shock of it sends him flying and he ends up face down in a morass of mouldy leaves and squelchy mud. Painfully, he turns his head, spitting earth and leaves, half expecting to find Robin's boot on his back pinning him to the ground, a blade to his throat. Do it, he'll say. Finish me now. It's no more than I deserve.

The boot doesn't come.

Guy pushes up onto his knees and then shakily comes to his feet. There is a warm wetness on his right thigh; the stitches Djaq carefully sewed have almost certainly ripped apart during his frenzied running, the bandage she neatly tied around his leg now soaked with blood. Guy knows that if Robin's arrow or sword doesn't kill him then loss of blood and a cold night without shelter in the forest almost certainly will.

_I should have picked up my sword,_ he thinks, glancing down and seeing his big toe sticking out from his holed stocking, minus toenail, bleeding profusely. For some inexplicable reason, the sight of his bloody toe reminds him of the sheriff, gaily painting his nails black. Bile rises in Guy's throat and he retches as he runs, splattering the front of his mud-streaked leather doublet.

_Armed,_ _I would at least have a chance against Hood. I could hide behind a tree and leap out at Robin as he runs past me._ He stumbles over another tree root and his wounded leg buckles under him as a white-hot pain shoots through his thigh. Guy laughs and sobs at the same time. He couldn't leap to save his life.

Winded, gasping for breath, he stops running. He listens. There are no sounds of pounding feet, no yells of _'there he is'_. But, of course, there wouldn't be. Robin and his men are too smart for that. Silent running, Robin calls it. Guy glances around, peers through the gloom. Even now, Robin could be hiding behind some tree, having hardly broken a sweat, arrow nocked, his prey in his sights.

Guy waits. All he can hear is the soft rustling of leaves and, far off, a wolf's howl.

Slower now, he limps along a narrow track, no more than a deer trail. After his last tumble, he has lost all sense of direction; for all Guy knows, he could be heading back towards the camp. Any moment now, he could be facing a murderous Robin Hood and his loyal manservant, ladle swapped for sword and shield. Two against one – an injured, unarmed one at that – or possibly more than two if the rest of the gang have since returned to the camp. Guy has seen the way Will Scarlet shoots shy glances at Djaq, Allan too. For her, they will kill in an instant despite Robin's we do not kill doctrine, one, it seems, he keeps as long as it suits him if the ambush on the Great North Road was anything to go by.

_This is hopeless,_ Guy thinks. _I am merely putting off the inevitable. I should simply stand here and wait for Hood to find me and end my sorry, miserable life. _It will be no life now in any case, not without the possibility of winning Marian, a possibility he had clung to until the moment he saw her in Robin's arms.

Even though he had long suspected that Marian still held a torch for Robin, Guy had believed that with the right inducement, namely lands, wealth and security, he could win her hand, that she would forsake the arrogant, reckless outlaw for someone who wanted only the best for her. He had been wrong about that just as he had been wrong about believing that joining Robin and his gang, becoming the good man that Marian wanted him to be, might encourage her to give him a second chance, might make her look upon him with new eyes. Marian loved Robin: the kiss had said it all.

He stops and glances up at the heavens, shakes his head at his foolishness. God will not answer his prayers and have Robin lose his way and step over the edge of a ravine in the ever-darkening forest. Guy knows he has committed too many heinous crimes to deserve such holy intervention.

He holds his arms out wide. _Here I am, Robin Hood_. _Take me. Take your deadly aim and plant an arrow in my chest, or draw that Saracen blade and sever my head from my neck. Either way, my life is yours to end._

He stands that way for ages, until his arms ache and his injured leg is shaking with the effort of keeping upright.

"Hood! Robin Hood! Where the fuck are you?"

Nothing. Guy drops his aching arms to his sides.

Some forest creature skitters through the undergrowth, startling him. Heart pounding, Guy keeps perfectly still, as though that will make him invisible. Another clump of undergrowth rustles off to his left side and then again in front of him. Guy is terrified. Death by sword or arrow he can accept even though he fears it; but a wolf or boar mauling him to death chills him to the bone.

A branch snaps above his head. Guy hunkers down, his injured leg throbbing and burning in protest, a warm leak of terror trickling down the insides of his leathers.

_I will soon pass out from loss of blood, and while I am lying on the ground a pack of wolves will savage me, tear me limb from limb. Sharp teeth will tear off my gloves and gnaw on the fingers that picked herbs and edible mushrooms for her. They'll rip my leathers to shreds and then my flesh; tear my bloody stockinged feet from ankles, my cock and ballsack from between my legs, my hands from wrists. _

Another snap behind him and Guy lurches to his feet, runs in what he hopes is the direction of the camp, screaming Robin and Hood, Locksley and Brat Face until he is hoarse. No outlaw, bow raised, a determined look on his face, appears. There is nothing but trees and falling darkness.

Guy longs for the castle and his bedchamber, for the echoing footsteps of the sheriff's guards plodding up and down the shadowy corridors, keeping trespassers out and occupants in. He wants his roomy bed with its thick mattress and blankets. He wants the adjoining garderobe for his personal use. He wants wine. Most of all, he wants to be out of this fucking forest.

He stops running, realising he should be at the camp by now. He is lost. He takes a few more limping steps and then sinks to his knees, too exhausted to do anything more than breathe.

His stomach growls in emptiness and Guy wonders if it's possible to survive on leaves. Above his head, an owl hoots. _Or owls,_ he thinks, laughing hysterically.

Regaining his breath, he looks up, squints. Ahead, he can make out a dark shape. Rising to his feet, he hobbles towards it. The shape becomes a cave. Guy recognises it. It is the cave where the sheriff and he once found Hood and his men holed up, where Robin came charging down the hill loosing arrows with all the ferocity of an assassin, not to frighten or warn, but to kill.

_Maybe,_ Guy thinks, _I will not die tonight after all. _Hood has not caught up with him and he has found shelter. If he can start a fire, maybe staunch the bleeding from his injured leg, he might yet be all right. And once it is daylight, he might be better able to find his way out of the forest, back to Nottingham. In the castle, he will be safe and the sheriff will believe his story: _They suspected I might be spying on them, doubted my allegiance, especially after I failed to maim a single guard during the ambush on the Great North Road. I tried to tell the muttonheaded guards I was playacting, but one of the fools still stabbed me in the leg. The outlaws took me back to their camp, tied me up, started asking me questions about your plans and the Black Knights. I told them nothing, of course. As soon as I got the chance, I escaped. _

Guy peers into the cave, fearful that some bear or other creature might be lurking in its depths. Reminding himself that the outlaws must have once used this as their wintering hole, before the elaborate camp Will built, he casts around for an armful of dry branches in the hope of building a fire.

As he is collecting the firewood, another worrisome thought comes into his head. As soon as he is able, Robin will tell Marian about Djaq. The sheriff will believe, or pretend to believe, whatever cock-and-bull story he makes up, will most likely interrupt Guy during the telling with a "bored now", waving him away. But when Marian learns the truth, she will turn him over to Robin herself, that's if she doesn't spike his eye out with a hairpin in the meantime. Unless...

If Djaq died without another word passing her lips, then Robin cannot know for sure what happened. Neither he nor Marian knows that Guy saw them kissing: only Djaq knows that and she is... _"Oh, I have never tried to put myself together again."_

_I'm sorry,_ Guy thinks, exclaiming as he grazes his wrist on a thorny plant. _I didn't mean to cut you._

He will have to speak to Marian before Robin gets to her. He will claim it was an accident: cleaning his sword, Djaq startled me, a slip, a fall. He will say that he panicked and ran. Marian believed his story about his contagion, about him not being in the Holy Land all those weeks, he is sure of it. She will believe this. He will make her believe it.

He will tell the sheriff where the outlaw's camp is (when he was being carried back from the ambush, they forgot his blindfold). In the daylight, he is certain he can find it again. The sheriff's men will deal with Hood and the other outlaws; he will take no part in it. And when Marian has recovered from her grief, she will come to him. In time.

Carrying an armful of kindling, Guy limps into the dark cave, a glimmer of hope lighting his way.


	6. Trapped

**Summary: **Guy's hope of escaping Robin's wrath is thwarted when the outlaw finds Guy's hiding place.

**Disclaimer: **Robin Hood belongs to Tiger Aspect and the BBC. No copyright infringement intended. All rights reserved.

* * *

**Trapped**

"He's in here," Guy hears Robin tell whoever it is who is with him.

"Are you sure?" Much asks, clearly fearful about entering the cave.

"Yes," Robin says. "See this. That's blood, human blood."

Guy tucks his long hair behind his ears and sits, aching bones and ripped flesh protesting at the sudden movement. Despite the pain in his injured leg, the numbing cold and the image of Djaq pressing her small hand to her slashed stomach dancing in front of his tired, tear-scratchy eyes, Guy had fallen asleep. The dry firewood he had collected the evening before lies scattered about the cave floor, hurled there in a fit of fury when he had been unable to find a flint with which to light it and no amount of stick rubbing had produced a spark.

Two pairs of boots crunch on the rock-strewn floor of the cave. Guy glances at his stockinged feet, which he can just make out in the gloom. The big toe of his right foot is black with congealed blood, the result of stubbing it on an exposed tree root and tearing off the nail as he fled the camp.

He hears the creak of a bowstring: Robin nocking an arrow.

A small sob escapes Guy's mouth. Last evening, having found the cave, he had thought he might still make it out of the forest alive, that come the morning he might find his way back to Nottingham. Once there, he planned to concoct a story about the outlaws mistrusting him, especially after he had failed to maim a single guard during the ambush on the Great North Road. He was going to tell the sheriff that the outlaws had taken him hostage, intending to use him for their own ends, but that he had escaped. Guy had also planned to tell Marian that his stabbing Djaq had been nothing more than a terrible accident and that, supposing Robin would not believe his story, he had panicked and run.

What he would do after that, he had no idea. The thought of being under Vaisey's thumb once again made him shudder. Somehow, he would find a way of dealing with that particular problem. And when Robin was dead – for surely the outlaw's luck had to run out sometime – Guy would set about winning Marian; not with baubles and trinkets and fine horses, but with a promise that he will become the better man she desires him to be.

Unhappily, Hood has found him, snuffing out that particular glimmer of hope. All Guy can hope for now is a swift and merciful death, though he doubts Robin will grant him either.

A flaming torch casts flickering shadows on the cave wall. As it nears, its orange light pierces the gloom in the farthest reaches of the cave where the morning sun struggles to throw any light.

Guy sits and waits. There is nowhere to hide and a feel along the damp, rocky walls of the cave last night revealed there are no negotiable tunnels through which to make an escape. He doubts he can walk in any case; his wounded leg is numb, the other one nearly so.

Robin rounds the bend in the cave's shallow entrance and comes into view, bow held out in front of him. Behind him is Much, sword in one hand, flaming torch in the other.

Guy closes his eyes. Through chattering teeth he says, "Do it."

The bowstring creaks as Robin draws back the arrow.

Despite his determination to die with a modicum of dignity, a wet warmth floods the seat of his leathers. Guy lets out a short bark of hysterical laughter. He should have done this last night when he was freezing his arse off instead of trying to light a fire.

A warm tear tracks down his cold face. When someone eventually stumbles upon his dead body, will they find nothing but putrid flesh rotting inside his bloodied, soiled leathers, or will those leathers have collapsed onto the cave floor as his dry skeleton topples over with the weight of his thick padded doublet?

Gritting his teeth, Guy presses his back into the unforgiving cave wall, waiting for Robin's grey and white goose-feather fletched arrow to thud into his chest.

"Why," Robin asks, "did you stab Djaq after all the kindness she showed you, after she tended you when you were injured?" Robin lowers his bow, no doubt realising that, without a sword and in pain, Guy poses no threat.

Guy thinks about telling Robin what he was going to tell Marian: she tripped; it was an accident, unavoidable. He looks up and meets Robin's penetrating stare. "Because she got in my fucking way, that's why. Now loose your damn arrow and be done with it."

"Explain," Robin says, his arrow still pointing at the floor of the cave.

Guy shakes his head from side to side. _Let Robin work it out,_ he thinks. In the two weeks since Guy had joined the outlaws, yesterday had been the first time the men of the camp, excluding Robin's snivelling manservant, had been away from their leader. It would have been Guy's best chance to make a strike. Robin would not suspect another reason for Guy's attack; not that that will make any difference now. He killed one of Robin's friends and that is something Guy knows Robin will not forgive.

"Tell me," Robin shouts, throwing the bow and arrow aside and unsheathing his scimitar. "We trusted you. We offered you friendship, the chance to redeem yourself and this is how you repay us." Robin crouches, the sharp edge of his blade pressed to Guy's throat. "I want to know why you betrayed that trust. Why, after living and working alongside us, you turned against us."

"If you trusted me so much," Guy says, his heart thumping wildly at the feel of the cold steel on his neck, "why did you continue to blindfold me?"

"You know why we did that. The camp is our last line of defence. No one, other than Matilda, knows where it is. We had to be certain you were on our side before revealing its whereabouts to you."

"Marian knew where to find it."

"Marian is on our side, you know that."

"Oh, I know it all right."

Robin gives Guy a questioning look, and Guy feels the blade ease away from his throat. For a heartbeat, he considers punching Robin in the stomach and making a run for it. He changes his mind. Even with Robin down, there is still Much to get past and Guy knows he will not get far with his injured leg and his lacerated feet.

"Robin," Much hisses.

Robin stands, not taking his eyes off Guy. "What?"

"Someone's coming."

Much is right. A rider is approaching.

"Take a look," Robin says, waving an arm at Much. "But don't let whoever it is see you, not until we are sure they are a friend."

Wedging the torch in a crevice, Much creeps towards the cave's entrance, sword at the ready. Moments later, he returns, Marian at his side.

"You," Guy says evenly, his earlier suspicion confirmed. "You're the Night Watchman."

Marian, clad in brown breeches, jerkin and cloak, mask dangling from her hand, does not attempt to deny it, but simply waits as the full implication dawns on Guy.

"I'm sorry," he says, eyeing Marian's close-fitting leather jerkin and the spot where his curved dagger sliced into her as she pushed past him; the day she tried to steal his wealth. "I did not know it was you."

"But you knew what you were doing when you stabbed Djaq," Marian says, standing beside Robin, their arms touching.

Guy bows his head, covers his face with his cold, dirty hands. He cannot lie to Marian now, say it was an accident; he has already told Robin the truth. "I did not mean to," he says, his voice muffled. Warm tears seep between his frozen fingers and plop onto his filthy, mud-smeared leathers, though whether those tears are for himself or for the kindly Saracen woman with the gentle hands and the warm smile, he doesn't know.

"That is what Djaq said," Marian says.

"What?" Robin asks.

"Djaq said that Guy did not mean to hurt her. He was just trying to warn her off, so he could get to you."

Guy looks up. "She's alive?" he asks, a beat after Robin asks the same question.

Marian nods. "Yes. She lost a lot of blood, but Matilda worked one of her miracles and Djaq lives. Just before I left the camp, she spoke a few words. She said to beg Robin not to kill Guy, to ask him to find forgiveness as she will find forgiveness."

Robin shakes his head no. "If I let him live, he will go back to the sheriff. He will tell Vaisey where our camp is."

"I told you," Guy protests, trembling once again at the thought of rotting away, unburied, in the depths of the cave. "I was always blindfolded. I have no idea where your—"

"You were not blindfolded after the ambush." Robin throws Much a daggered look. "Even in the state you were in, you were capable of remembering the path, or at least of having some idea of the camp's location. A few choice landmarks and it will not take long for the sheriff to find us."

Guy's heart sinks. He should have known Robin would notice Much's blunder once they were safely back at the camp and he came to take Guy's blindfold off.

"There's always such a lot to remember," Much says, trying to sheathe his sword and twice missing the scabbard before he slides it in.

"Well next time try writing it down," Robin says, sarcasm dripping from his tongue.

Much sniffs and Marian, noticing Much's wobbling lower lip, gives Robin a poke in the ribs. "Robin," she says, laying a soothing hand on his arm.

"What?" Robin shakes Marian off him, clearly irritated that she is here, intent on stopping Robin doing the thing he has been itching to do since the day he first walked back into Locksley to find Guy living in his manor and mistreating his peasants.

"Djaq also said that Guy was not asleep when I came to the camp to see you. He saw us together. That's why he wanted to hurt you."

"Is this true?" Robin asks him.

Guy nods.

"Even so," Robin says, shooting Marian an annoyed look, as though this is all her fault. "I am still going to kill him. I will not have him back in the camp, not now, and it's too much of a risk to let him return to Nottingham. This is the only way." Robin sheathes his blade and picks up his bow.

Marian pushes in front of him, blocking his path. "No. I forbid it."

Robin scowls. "You cannot forbid it. Now go outside and tend to your horse. It sounds fretful. I will be quick, I promise."

Guy wants to tell Marian he is sorry, that he tried to be the man she wanted him to be, that he would do anything if they would just give him another chance. But fear has clogged his throat and he can manage no more than a terrified grunt as Robin nocks an arrow. Clearly, the outlaw wants to let whoever finds Guy know that this was the work of Robin Hood. Perhaps he even intends to take Guy's body back to Nottingham and dump it on the castle steps, proving to the sheriff that, no matter what schemes the sheriff thinks up to catch the outlaws, Robin Hood will always triumph in the end.

Guy turns tear-filled eyes on Marian in a last desperate appeal, hoping that her sense of fair play will win out over her love and respect for Robin: whatever Guy may be, he is a knight and deserves to die with a sword in his hand.

The bowstring gives another ominous creak as Robin draws the arrow back to his ear. "I am hardly going to miss his heart from this distance, Marian," he says, as if to justify what he is about to do.

Guy does not want to end up with his eyes frozen open in mortal terror, so closes them.

Marian's horse whinnies and snorts. Another horse answers.

Guy's eyes fly open. Robin swivels round, arrow still nocked.

"The gang?" Marian queries.

Robin shakes his head. "No. We have no horses." He waves Much towards the cave's entrance. "Go check it out, but stay hidden."

Much takes two steps and then stops as it becomes clear from the jingle of bridles, the rattle of mail and the clank and thud of shield and sword that there are a number of riders approaching and they are unlikely to be friendly. He turns to Robin, says, "What do we do?" his head twisting this way and that, as though hoping that an escape route will suddenly open up before them.

Robin glances back at Guy, and Guy catches a fleeting look of fear on the outlaw's face before Robin masks it with a grim smile. "We fight."

"What, just the two of us?" Much says, his voice noticeably rising in pitch.

"There's Marian, too."

Even as Robin is saying it, Marian has donned her mask and is nocking an arrow.

"That's the Lady Marian's horse," one of the riders calls out.

"But where is the fair lady?" Sheriff Vaisey asks.

Robin steps up beside Marian, ignoring Much's hissed whining about dying in a poxy cave.

"Let me go," Guy says. "I'll get rid of them."

"And why would you do that?" Robin asks.

"Because there are too many of them for you to fight, even if you had enough arrows. And because Marian is dressed as the Night Watchman. The sheriff will hang her too."

Robin takes a step towards the entrance.

"I will not betray you," Guy says, managing to push himself up onto his knees. "I will not tell the sheriff where your camp is, I swear it."

"You and you," the sheriff barks. "Search that cave."

Robin lowers his bow, waves Marian and Much towards the deep shadows at the back of the cave. "See that you don't," he says to Guy.

Laying his bow on the ground, Robin crouches and offers Guy an arm.

Jaw clenched, hand gripping Robin's bow-muscled arm, Guy struggles to his feet.

Two pairs of booted feet crunch on the rock-strewn ground as the sheriff's men cautiously make their way into the cave.

"Hurry," Robin hisses in his ear. He shoves Guy forward.

Sharp rocks cutting into his sore and bloodied feet, his injured leg on fire, Guy hobbles towards the sunlit entrance. He rounds the bend in the cave just before the sheriff's men do.

"Sir Guy," one of the men exclaims.

"Help me," Guy says, uncaring about revealing his pitiful state to the sheriff's guards, wishing only to steer them out of the cave and away from Marian.

The nearest guard offers Guy his shoulder.

"Gisborne," the sheriff says, eyes flicking from Guy to Marian's horse and back again. "Have you been meeting the Lady Marian? Are you keeping some secret tryst I know nothing about?"

"Do I look like I've spent the night with a woman?" Guy says, still clutching onto the guard's shoulder.

"That depends on the woman, Gisborne."

Marian's horse, the one Guy gave her as a token of his affection, paws the ground with its right forefoot, tossing its head.

"So where is the leper, then?" The sheriff waves an ermine-trimmed gloved hand at the agitated horse.

"Marian is not here," Guy says. Breathing heavily through the pain, he stammers out his earlier planned fabrication, about the outlaws mistrusting him and holding him hostage, about escaping and running through the forest. To it, he adds a further lie about bumping into Marian, stealing her horse, losing his way in the dark and holing up in the cave for the night.

During his garbled lies, Guy limps towards the nervy horse. _Please God don't let the damn beast throw me,_ he thinks, grabbing the reins.

"We must go, my Lord Sheriff," he says, hauling himself into the saddle, nausea clawing up his throat, the forest coming in and out of focus as he struggles to pull himself erect. "The outlaws are after me. They are on foot but they know the forest well. They could be on us at any moment."

"We are many," the sheriff says, ignoring Guy's obvious distress and indicating his men. "And I believe there are only a handful of them at most."

"No," Guy says, stroking his mount's neck, attempting to calm the skittish animal. "The outer circle is with them. They easily match us for numbers and they are all armed. And they have the Greek fire," Guy adds, remembering that when he first joined the outlaws he told Robin where to find the Greek fire that the sheriff planned to kaboom them with. Robin said he had destroyed it, but the sheriff isn't to know that.

At the mention of the deadly black powder, the sheriff's expression changes from one of smug assurance to horrified alarm. Barking at the men to about-face, he gives the order to move off.

Guy clicks his tongue and when his horse doesn't move, smacks his bleeding stockinged feet into its flanks, grinding his teeth together in an effort not to cry out in agony.

"My God, Gisborne," the sheriff says, drawing up alongside Guy. "You smell worse than the castle privies."

"You'd stink if you'd been living in this fucking forest," Guy says, eyes smarting at the sheriff's remark.

"I always said your scheme to infiltrate the outlaws wouldn't work."

"If you recall, my lord," Guy says through gritted teeth, the desire to insert a fist into the sheriff's gold-toothed mouth outweighed by the desire to stay in the saddle of his temperamental horse, "you said my idea was genius."

"Rubbish! Since when would I refer to you as a genius? I think you've been eating too many mushrooms, my dear boy."

Guy recalls Djaq and him, foraging for edible herbs and fungi; her kindly laughter at his numerous blunders when it came to recognising foods fit to eat; her gentle hands as she soothed his nettle-stung wrist with a dock leaf.

_I am not your dear boy,_ he thinks, tears welling. _I am your whipping boy. I am the one you shout at when things go wrong, the one you ridicule, the one who never wins the girl. _

Guy turns his head to look behind him. The cave is lost from view. All he can see are trees and dappled sunlight, the forest where, for a brief time, he was happy.


	7. Blood, Wine and Promises

**Summary: **Guy isn't dead. That's the good news...

* * *

**Blood, Wine and Promises**

Djaq is laughing; that high feminine laugh of hers. She snatches the dock leaf out of Guy's hand, saying, "Here, let me."

She lightly crumples the leaf and then asks Guy to show her his nettle-stung wrist. She presses the crushed leaf to his red and white blotched skin. However, his grateful smile soon becomes a grimace as his wrist starts to pulse and burn, worse than when he unwittingly thrust it into the clump of stinging nettles in order to pick the tiny mushrooms he spied growing amongst them. Now his wrist is on fire and the dock leaf has turned into a vial, the acid drip dripping onto his exposed flesh, burning it. Djaq laughs again and kisses his arm. Her lips are cool and soft. The burning stops immediately. Looking at his wrist, he sees it is its usual pale colour; no sign of charred flesh or blotchy lumps.

In gratitude, Guy resumes picking the wild herbs and edible fungi that Djaq desires. He picks and picks until his hands are full.

Back at the camp, he hands his forest harvest to Much, presently cutting down squirrels hanging from a tree.

"They're too big," Much protests.

When Guy looks at his hands he sees that the mushrooms he has picked are indeed enormous, the size of a cart.

Robin lands in front of Guy with a thump. He grabs a mushroom and holds it over Guy's head, his face grim. The mushroom blocks out the sun, the trees, everything. Then a torch flames and Guy looks up and sees the underside of the mushroom is rock, the roof of a cave. He lowers his eyes. Robin is standing in front of him, arrow nocked, aiming it at Guy's chest.

Guy holds up his hands, as if to ward off the arrow, but his hands are mushrooms. He is defenceless.

He turns to Djaq, to beg for help, but sees that Djaq is lying on Much's griddle. Much is hacking her into pieces with Guy's broadsword. Allan stands next to him, sprinkling herbs over Djaq's body parts. Her head rolls off the griddle and lands on the ground with a squelchy splash.

"Sir Guy."

Guy's eyes snap open, his heart hammering so hard he fears it will burst out of his chest. He pushes his tangled mop of hair from his face and studies his hands: four fingers and a thumb on each, knuckles and palms. He'd been having a nightmare.

"Sir Guy? Are you well?" A sharp rap on the door accompanies the question.

Guy glances at the heavy blanket covering his legs, the dark grey walls, the flickering tallow candle and the horn covered window. His room, in the castle. He's been here for three days, maybe four; he can't remember.

"Can I fetch you anything?" the guard behind the door asks.

_Yes,_ Guy thinks, wincing in pain as he wriggles further up the bed, so he can lean against the dark oak headboard. _You can get me a new leg, a new identity, a new fucking life._

"Wine," he answers, his voice raspy from lack of use and retching.

"The sheriff said that you are not—"

"Wine, damn you," Guy shouts. He does not want to know what the sheriff said.

He listens to the guard's echoing footsteps as he heads down the castle corridor to do Guy's bidding.

"Aww, got fed up with your warm and fuzzy outlaws, did you? Beds not soft enough, Gisborne? Not enough variety in your diet?"

Guy hadn't answered the sheriff; he'd needed all his concentration to stay in the saddle of Marian's horse, to not let the pain of his injured leg get the better of him.

He'd glanced behind him several times during his agonising ride back to Nottingham, but no outlaws appeared. He had saved Marian, Robin and Much from almost certain capture by convincing the sheriff he'd spent the night alone in the cave. He had done his bit to try to atone for slicing Djaq open, but it was not enough that Robin would call on his men, both the inner and the outer circle, and rescue him from the clutches of the sheriff, the man Guy now detests with all his heart.

Wretched and filled with self-loathing, he is back where he started, the lackey and whipping boy of Sheriff Vaisey, only this time there is a guard stationed outside his bedchamber door, night and day.

"I told you," Guy had said as they trotted under the raised portcullis and across the cobbled courtyard. "The outlaws became suspicious of me. They suspected that—"

"La, di, da, di, da," the sheriff cut across him, dismounting from his white mare, stepping onto the back of an obliging guard, down on all fours. "Do you think I really care why you left those thieving outlaws? A clue – no. The fact is, you're back, and now you can tell me where their forest hideout is and I can deal with those do-gooders once and for all."

Guy had told the sheriff he didn't know where the outlaws' camp was; they'd made him wear a blindfold every time they'd left or returned to it.

Incensed, the sheriff had whacked Guy's wounded leg with a gloved hand and then stomped towards the steps leading to the castle's main entrance.

At Guy's howl of pain, Marian's skittish horse had reared and he had fallen off. The next thing he knew, he was in his bedchamber, a guard on his door.

His stomach gurgles with emptiness. Servants had brought meals to his room and, later, taken them away, untouched. Only the wine he consumed, jug after jug of it. The servants didn't take away the foul-smelling pail in the corner of his room. If he continued drinking to excess, it would soon overflow.

Apart from stumbling over to the pail to spill the red and runny contents of his stomach, the only other times Guy had left his bed were when he needed to squat on his chamberpot. He can smell it now, the fetid odour filling the airless room. The servants weren't emptying that, either.

The sheriff had spoken to Guy only once since striking him in the castle courtyard. Standing outside Guy's bedchamber door he had bellowed: "Gisborne, you'd better think very carefully about whose side you're on if you want to set foot outside this door again."

Guy had spilled from the bed, pounded on the door with his fist, insisting he was on the sheriff's side and that he didn't know where the outlaws' camp was. The sheriff didn't respond, his footfalls echoing along the castle corridor as he strode away.

That had been three or four days ago. Since then, the only visitor he had had, other than the morose servants who delivered his meals and jugs of wine, was Blight, the sheriff's physician.

To ensure Blight didn't tell the sheriff about Guy's stitched leg, disproving Guy's lie about the outlaws' taking him hostage following the ambush on the Great North Road, Guy had ripped what remained of Djaq's neat little stitches from his wound, stuffing a rag in his mouth to keep from crying out. Watching the fresh bloody trails run down his thigh, staining the grey and sweaty bedsheet, he had cried, not from the pain of pulling the stitches, but from the images dancing behind his tired, aching eyes. Images of Djaq pressing her small hand to her stomach, staring in amazed disbelief at the blood seeping between her splayed fingers. Images of Robin and Marian, kissing, their arms wrapped around each other.

When the stitches were out, the bloody threads dropped into his chamberpot, Guy had flopped back onto his bed, too full of remorse and apathy to care whether he bled to death or not. He'd fumbled inside his sweat and wine-stained undershirt to clutch his wooden outlaw tag, to remember happier times. The tag was not there. Guy remembered: he had snatched it out of Djaq's hand when she had offered it to him, flung it aside, his only care at that time to thrust the sharp end of his sword into Robin's heart because he had broken Guy's.

Blight had come some hours later, with his leeches and his pompous manner, and sewn Guy up. The stitches were large and uneven and the physician made more of them than the wound merited. Prior to inserting the blunt and rusty needle into his ripped flesh, Blight had snatched the wine goblet from Guy's hand, insisting it wouldn't hurt a bit. It had hurt a lot, and Guy couldn't help but wonder whether the sheriff had had a quiet word in Blight's ear prior to the physician calling on him. God, how he hated that man.

A soft rap on the door stirs him from his miserable thoughts.

"About fucking time," he says, licking his lips in anticipation of the blood red wine wetting them and then running down his throat, warming his insides, dulling his senses.

The person behind the door knocks again, louder this time.

Guy shouts, "I'm the one locked in, you dimwit."

He waits, looks expectantly at the door. No key turns in the lock; no servant carrying a wine jug appears.

Exasperated, Guy flings the blanket from his legs and limps across to the door, mumbling threats about ramming the jug on the stupid servant's head.

"Guy," a voice whispers.

"Marian." Guy leans his forehead against the oak door, sucks in and blows out a shaky breath. This is the first time since arriving back at the castle that he has heard from Marian. In his more lucid moments, he had fretted and gnashed his teeth, convinced the sheriff had captured the Night Watchman or that he had caught Marian in the act of spying and locked her in the dungeons, awaiting the gallows. He even started penning a letter to Robin expressing his fears before screwing it up in frustration: he was a prisoner in his own bedchamber; what hope did he have of getting his plea delivered to Robin Hood.

"Where have you been?" he asks. "I was worried you—"

"I can't talk for long," she says, cutting him off. "I told your guard he was wanted in the Great Hall and he will soon be back when he finds out he is not."

Guy asks, "Can you unlock the door?"

"No, sorry. Guy, did you tell the sheriff where Robin's camp is?"

"No."

"Are you going to?"

"No."

Guy hears Marian's hiss of relief through the thick oak panels that separate them.

"Guy, the sheriff locked you in here because he suspects you betrayed him, joined the outlaws. He does not believe your story about Robin taking you hostage. He thinks you were the one who told Robin about the tax monies. The sheriff questioned the guard who stabbed you. The guard said you attacked him and he had no choice but to defend himself."

"How do you know all this?"

"I heard the sheriff speaking to his mute scribe. I was listening at the keyhole."

"Of course you were," he says. "After all, you're not only the Night Watchman; you're also Robin's spy."

"You know why I do what I do, Guy."

Guy detects a note of apology in Marian's voice, though, without being able to see her face, he can't be certain of her sincerity. Not that seeing her face ever helped him before in discovering Marian's true thoughts. Djaq was right: he has spent too little of his life around women and understands nothing of their ways.

"Does the sheriff believe my lie about not knowing where the camp is, about the blindfold?"

"The sheriff knows Robin is no fool, not when it comes to protecting his friends. The camp is Robin's sanctuary and he doesn't reveal its whereabouts to anyone unless he absolutely trusts them. So, yes, I am certain that bit of your story at least he believes."

"So I am locked in here because the sheriff wants me to suffer, to pay for my disloyalty?"

"Yes."

"Marian?"

"What?"

"You can get me out of here. I don't doubt your talents to trick these fool guards and unlock the door."

"And if I do, then what?"

Guy stares at his lacerated feet, at his blackened, blood-encrusted big toe. Marian is right – then what? Make his way to The Trip Inn, drown his sorrows and end up a drunkard, a beggar on the streets, one of the great unwashed of Nottingham who Robin so charitably helps with his handouts of coin. Or stay with the sheriff and continue to suffer the indignities, the insults, the taunts and the tongue-lashings. Robin will not take him back, of that he is certain.

As if reading his mind, Marian says, "You could leave Nottingham, make a new start. Robin will give you some coin if I ask him to."

He notices she doesn't suggest that he kills the sheriff. Neither does he suggest it himself. Knowing his luck, he'd probably botch the job, end up stabbing one of the sheriff's serving boys instead of the sheriff. Either that or one of the sheriff's fool guards will actually prove useful for once and run him through while the sheriff gives Guy a gold-toothed grin and a small wave of his hand.

"No," he says. "I will not leave Nottingham. Not without you."

"You cannot have me; you know that. I am going to marry Robin. I love Robin."

Marian laughs quietly, but Guy hears it. He grinds his forehead into the door, harder and harder, as if by doing so he might blot out the words she has just spoken.

"I love Robin," she repeats. She gives another small laugh, as if she can hardly believe what she has just said.

Of course, Guy knows she loves Robin just as he loves her. Their kissing proved that. But to hear the words spoken aloud is more than Guy can bear. He is glad the door stands between them so she cannot see his tears.

"Guy?" Marian hisses when he remains silent.

"What?" he manages.

"If you stay here, the sheriff will make your life a misery."

He lets out a short bark of hysterical laughter. His life can surely be no more miserable than it is right now.

"You are as stubborn as Robin," she says.

Guy can almost hear her stamping her foot.

"You should be the one to leave," he says. "You endanger your life by staying here, and I cannot properly protect you while I am locked in this room." Despite all the lies and deceptions she has dealt him since Robin's return to England, he cannot find it in his heart to wish her harm, or worse. Marian saved his life in the cave. Robin would have killed him; of that, he has no doubt.

"I cannot. My father."

"That is a poor excuse and you know it. It would not be difficult for you to take your father to a place of comfort and safety. You have many noble friends here, people who could care for him while you ride around pretending to be a man, handing out your food parcels and stolen coin."

Guy waits for Marian to come back with some counter argument. She does not.

"You will not leave the castle," he continues, "because it suits your purpose, suits Hood's purpose. Without you listening at keyholes, it would impossible for Robin to learn of the sheriff's schemes, the coming and going of coin; he would find it harder to evade capture."

Marian remains tight-lipped.

As the silence stretches on, Guy presses his ear to the door fearing the guard has returned and Marian has slipped away, hearing nothing of what he has just said.

"Marian?" He taps gently on the door.

"I am here."

"What are we to do?" he asks.

"Wait," she says.

Guy hears footsteps: the guard returning. He hears Marian say something about misunderstanding or mishearing the sheriff's request. She tells the guard that the sheriff was in a foul mood and she didn't want him to shout at her so had not asked him to repeat his request of her. She hurriedly goes on to say she is feeling rather faint, it being the time of her moon blood, and could the guard please fetch her some water to dispel the dizziness whereupon she will return to her chamber to lie down.

The guard mumbles something in reply and speeds away, clearly uncomfortable with the mention of the Lady Marian's monthly blood flow.

Moments later, she raps on the door.

"Marian?"

"I will do a deal with you," she says.

"Which is?"

"I will leave the castle if you will take my place, become Robin's spy."

"And if I do. What do I get out of it?"

"Robin does not forgive easily, not when it comes to his friends, and what you did to Djaq was unforgiveable, even if you did not mean to. By doing this, you will regain Robin's trust and, when the time is right, he will help you escape the sheriff. When the king returns to England, he will revoke Robin's outlaw status and in turn Robin can grant you land, a home, a Gisborne."

"There is no point in having a Gisborne if there is no Lady Gisborne to share it with me."

"You will have my friendship, Guy. That is the best I can offer."

Guy thinks of Djaq, smiling at him, laughing kindly at his mistakes, clapping her hands in delight when he presented her with an unrequested handful of mushrooms and herbs. Until the moment he stabbed her, he had not realised how much he had come to appreciate that friendship, rely upon it even. He misses her more than he does anything else about living in the forest camp. Surely a friendship with Marian is better than his present lonely existence.

He glances down at his shoddily stitched leg, at the bright red skin surrounding the crisscrossed threads. The back of his neck is damp with sweat, as is his forehead. The room is cold yet he is hot. He recognises the signs. A few more days locked in this room and he will not be able to remember his own name let alone have to worry about how he will wheedle his way back into the sheriff's good books, become a spy for Robin Hood.

"Very well," he says. "I will do as you ask. But you must promise me on your father's life that you will leave the castle immediately and not return. I could not bear to see you hang."

"I promise. And I will tell Robin that—"

"Marian?"

"Your water, my lady," the guard says.

Guy steps away from the door.

Moments later, the door opens and a serving girl enters with his long-awaited wine. The girl places the jug on a small table by the bed, wrinkling her nose as she does so. She scuttles out the door as fast as her long skirts will let her. The guard grins evilly at Guy and locks the door. The man's face is familiar and Guy realises it's the guard who stabbed him during the ambush.

With shaking hands, he pours the wine into a goblet. Drinking greedily, the crimson liquid pours down both his throat and his unshaven chin. He doesn't care. All he cares about is that Marian will be safe, away from the castle, and that his unhappy life will soon be over. He will escape the sheriff at last, without the aid of Robin Hood.

The jug empty, he flops onto the bed. Closing his eyes, he imagines leaves and branches above his head, patches of blue sky in between. He breathes in deeply, inhaling an imaginary whiff of wood smoke from the camp fire; hears the clunk of Will's axe as it bites into wood; the soft burble of voices as the gang sit and talk over their supper; and, rising above it all, Djaq's high feminine laughter.


	8. A Way Back

**A Way Back**

_Guy, _(no Dear, he notices, but then why should there be)

_Plans are in hand. My father and I leave the castle tonight. Robin knows. He will meet you at Dead Man's Crossing three days hence, at sundown. Come alone and make sure no one follows you. When Robin and his men see you are by yourself, they will show themselves._

_Marian. _

He stares at the letter, willing the ink to bleed something other than the impersonal Marian onto the parchment; even a Yours preceding it would suffice. But no.

_Post scriptum: Burn this after reading._

Guy glances at the horn-covered window. Though it is hard to see through it, greyed as it is by wood-smoke from countless fires in the airless room, he can still make out the blue sky beyond.

If all went well, Marian is long gone. If, as she slipped the letter underneath his door last evening, she had knocked to say goodbye, he had heard no such knock. The jug of wine had done its job; for a short while, he had escaped the pain of knowing that Marian loved Robin Hood and intended to marry him, along with the pain of his stitched leg. He even escaped his nightmares for once.

He had promised Marian he would take her place, become Robin's spy. He would happily have promised to become a monk and spend the rest of his days in prayer if it meant getting Marian to leave the castle, lessening the chances of the sheriff discovering her treachery and sentencing her to death. He is almost glad that his fever will put paid to such a foolish promise; Guy knows he has neither the wit nor the guile to deceive the sheriff the way Marian has deceived him these past years. His only regret is that he will not be able to keep the proposed rendezvous with Robin. Marian will think he has let her down – yet again.

Trying to still his trembling hands, he returns his attention to the letter. Marian has such neat handwriting. He wonders if Djaq knows how to read and write and suspects she does, and probably in more than one language.

He reads the letter one more time, memorising its contents (even though he knows he has little chance of making it out his bedchamber alive) and then shoves it into the feeble fire burning in the grate. The parchment smoulders, blackens at the edges.

Footsteps echo down the corridor: a servant with his wine and meal.

Dragging the thick blanket from his bed, Guy wraps it around himself and then limps back to the fire. He stabs the smoking parchment with a poker and, at last, it catches light, fiery orange and blue flames obliterating Marian's carefully inked words. Guy watches, transfixed, until it is nothing but crispy black fragments.

The footsteps pass by his door and fade away. Perhaps they have forgotten about him. He doesn't care. He is beyond wanting either food or drink. He wishes only to stop shivering, to be warm. His teeth are banging together so hard he fears they might shatter.

He turns towards the bed intending to lie down. This is how they will find him when someone, a guard or servant, eventually unlocks his bedchamber door: face upwards, staring blindly at a canopy of trees that aren't there.

Eyeing the stained bedsheet, he thinks, _let it not be the sheriff._

An image of a nine-year-old Isabella, his sister, comes to mind. With her free hand – the other caught up in her thick wavy hair, curling it around her fingers – she points at his unmade bed. "Two and ten and you still wet the bed, Guy Crispin." She gives him a spiteful smile. "Mama will not be pleased when I tell her."

_I hope your husband, Thornton, makes you cry, little sister. _

Shivering uncontrollably now, Guy lies on the cold wet bed. Staring at the ceiling, he waits for the darkness he knows must surely come soon.

* * *

"Shush. Do not be alarmed."

The woman's voice is familiar: precise English with a hint of foreign shores running through it.

Warm fingers touch his face and gently brush away the sweat-damp hair clinging to his temples.

Despite his weakened state, a vestige of pride kicks in and he bats the woman's hands away. Grabbing blindly for the blanket, he finds it gone.

"Be still," she says, her fingers curling around both his wrists, forcing his arms down by his sides. "I am trying to help you."

"Djaq?" He opens his eyes, watery and stinging with tiredness and the effects of the wine. The room, lit only by a now roaring fire in the grate, is close to darkness. All he can make out is a pale face and short dark hair.

"Yes, it is me, Djaq."

He thinks this must be a fever-induced nightmare, although the hands still pinning his arms down feel very real. He slashed Djaq open and although Marian assured both Robin and him that Matilda had saved her, he cannot believe that she could possibly be here, in the castle, by his side.

"Did you die?" he asks, his words a croaked whisper. "Am I soon to join you?" A small sobbing laugh escapes his lips. Fool. Djaq is destined for Heaven; he is not.

"No," she says. "I did not die. Allah must have decided that I am of more use here on this earth; and, judging by the state of you, I think he was right." She lets go of his wrists. "I need more light."

Soft footsteps and the swish of a dress hem on the cold stone floor mark her passage to the fire. Moments later, she places two lit candles on the small table by his bed, their fatty animal tang masking some of the more odious smells in the room. Guy inwardly cringes, thinking of the chamberpot under his bed and the contents of the pail sitting by the far wall, in full view.

"I need to get you warm," she says. "Can you sit?"

He thinks again of the cruel smile on Isabella's face. Tears leak from the corners of his eyes despite his best efforts to hold them at bay. "Can you leave me for a moment, come back when I have—"

She laughs, softly and without malice. "In the Holy Land, I spent many hours on the battlefields, helping my father tend the sick and the wounded. Do you think I have not seen what happens when a man cannot help himself. Now sit." She grabs his upper arms and, with surprising strength for so slight a woman, heaves him into a sitting position. "Good," she says. "Now drink this." Cupping the back of his head with one hand, she holds a wooden cup to his lips.

He drinks, coughs, the liquid dribbling through the beginnings of a beard.

"More," she says.

He obliges, even though the bitter-tasting liquid makes him want to retch. He is grateful when she takes the cup away.

"All right?" she asks, stroking his tangled hair with one hand, the other on the middle of his back, keeping him upright.

He nods, fearing that if opens his mouth he'll lose his insides. She stops stroking, instead running her fingers through his hair, combing out the snarls as she goes. His mother used to do this when he was a boy, before his father took a knife to it one day declaring the long dark curls too girlish for a son of Sir Rodger of Gisborne.

Pushing thoughts of his dead parents aside, Guy concentrates on Djaq's soothing hand and the small shivers between his shoulder blades, not of cold but of pleasure, as she drags her fingers through his long, dishevelled locks.

Gradually, the nausea lessens.

Sensing his ease, she drapes the thick blanket around his shoulders saying, "I must tend to your leg. I have made a poultice. It is very important that you keep it on for the next two days. Do you understand what I am asking of you?"

"Yes, I understand."

She touches the edges of Blight's haphazard stitches, the flushed skin. He jerks, a hiss of pain escaping his lips followed by a string of profane words.

"Apologies," he mumbles.

"Trust me," she says. "Many a time I have heard such language from the mouths of sick and wounded men. Even Robin blasphemes when he is in severe pain or terribly angry."

Djaq presses a warm, moist poultice to his injured thigh. Guy clamps his lips together, suppressing both an agonised moan and further expletives escaping his mouth. After a moment or two, his leg, as his stomach, calms and he is able to speak.

"How did you get in here? Did Marian get away safely?"

"I will wrap a bandage around your leg to hold the poultice in place," Djaq says. "And I will replace the sheet on your bed so you might sleep in comfort. The drink I gave you will help with the sleeping. After I have done these two things, then I will answer your questions."

Guy simply nods, too fatigued to argue with her.

Producing a length of bandage, Djaq deftly binds his leg. Then, working the soiled sheet from under him, she replaces it with a coverlet she finds folded up at the end of his bed. She bids him to lie on his back and he does so with a grateful sigh.

Before pulling the blanket back over him, she says, "I can remove your damp undergarments if you wish."

His already rapid heartbeats quicken at the thought of her caring hands easing his braies past his hips and then down his thighs, revealing his manhood. It is the first time since he met Marian that he's imagined a woman other than her eyeing his private parts and he wonders whether this is a sign that he is ready to let her go. Sadness at the thought clogs his throat. He has wanted Marian for so long he's not sure he knows how not to want her.

"I have seen plenty of those as well," Djaq says, a smile in her voice.

"I am fine," he says, his voice gruff with the effort of holding back fresh tears. He closes his eyes.

"You are not fine," she says, pulling the blanket over him, "but you will be if you are prepared to take control of your life."

He feels the mattress spring up slightly as Djaq comes to her feet. His eyes snap open, fearing she is about to leave without telling him how Marian fared.

For the first time since he found her at his bedside, he properly takes in her clothing. Not the men's breeches, shirt and jerkin he is used to seeing her in, but a drab brown dress that touches the floor, a wide sash in a lighter shade of brown wound around the waist. As she turns her back to him, he sees that the dress has a generous hood attached to it; doubtless, this helped her escape recognition when she entered the castle.

Crouching, Djaq picks up a basket, placing it on the table beside him. "Bread and meat and a skin of ale," she says. "For when you wake up. You will not get better by drinking wine and not eating."

Guy smiles his thanks.

"Now," she says, "I will answer your questions. I suspect you wish to know more about how Marian is than how I was able to enter your room undetected. Am I right?"

Guy nods and pats the bed, indicating his wish for her to sit.

Djaq shakes her head and he wonders if his earlier unbidden twitch of lust had repulsed her despite her apparent amusement.

"It is not you," she says, as if reading his thoughts. "This," she pats her stomach, the place where he cut her, "feels better if I am straight, not bent sitting."

Guy inwardly berates himself. He has not yet said sorry for cutting her open, for running away as she clung to a wooden post staring in horror at the blood soaking through her shirt, painting red rings around her splayed fingers as she pressed her hand to her slashed stomach.

She kneels by the bed and places a small hand on top of his much larger one. "Do not feel badly. I can see in your eyes that it hurts you to remember what you did to me. Be assured the cut was not deep. Blood loss was the danger, and Robin's fetching of Matilda ensured that I did not lose more than the body could bear."

_So that's why Robin took so long to catch up with me._

Guy recalls the time Robin's friends tried to persuade him to give Guy up in exchange for Djaq, when the sheriff held her captive in the castle. Robin had come close to rejecting their pleas. Clearly, the outlaw regretted showing that uglier side of his nature. This time he had made sure to do everything he could to help Djaq before he took after her attacker.

"Why didn't Robin send Much to fetch the healer woman?" he asks.

"Because Robin is the fastest runner of all of us."

Remembering the many times Robin had outrun both him and the sheriff's men, Guy can see the sense in the outlaw's decision.

Turning his head to look directly into her kindly brown eyes, he says, "What I did to you was inexcusable and I am truly sorry. You showed me kindness I did not deserve, not after all the crimes I've committed against Robin's people, and I repaid you with violence."

Djaq curls her fingers around his, says, "Now I will tell you of Marian, though there is little to tell."

Guy wishes there were a lot to tell; he wishes it would take a day and a night, longer. The last time a woman held his hand she had been yanking him out of a pantry, chiding him for trying to take a sneaky taste of the cake baked for his mother's birthday. Hildegard her name was, though he can't remember calling her anything other than Cook. This feels a hundred times better than that.

"With Robin's help, Marian was able to get her father out of the dungeons and to safety. Friends of Edward met him on the edge of Sherwood and have taken him to their home where he will be cared for."

"Did Marian go with him?"

"No. She is in the forest."

Guy turns away from her, stares at the window. In ensuring Marian's safety, he has made things more unbearable for himself. Marian and Robin are together, while he is stuck here in the castle, with nothing but his miserable thoughts and the vile sheriff for company. He almost wishes Djaq had not come and treated the fever he felt certain would lead to his death.

Djaq squeezes his fingers. "I know it hurts. But Marian's heart has always belonged to Robin."

When he does not speak, she continues. "Always you want the big things: the coin, the power, the great house and a wife to grace it. Are you so certain that these things will make you happy when you have them? When you came to the forest you smiled, you laughed. Can you not learn to find pleasure in the little things too?"

Guy realises he has stopped shivering. A short while ago he wanted nothing more than to be warm, and now he is. Could Djaq be right? Is it possible to find joy in the simple things of life and for that to be enough?

He recalls an eight-year-old Robin and he, three summers older but still fond of childish games, making mud pies beside Locksley pond shortly after a heavy thunderstorm had passed over. Robin, intent as ever on besting Guy, had edged nearer and nearer to the pond water in order to scoop up the softer mud so he could make the biggest mud pie. Guy had laughed his head off when Robin had sunk up to his skinny waist. He wants to laugh like that again.

Guy turns back to Djaq. "I made a promise to Marian."

"To take her place in the castle, become Robin's spy. I know."

"I cannot believe she trusts me to keep such a promise."

"She has always believed you have a better side, as she puts it. Besides, if you betray us, tell the sheriff where our camp is, Marian will suffer the same fate as us now that she is an outlaw too."

_The same fate as you, my angel of mercy._

"I will not betray you. Believe me; I want nothing more than to see the sheriff pay for all the years he's made me—" Guy clamps his lips together. This kind, smart and compassionate woman makes him want to unburden himself as no time spent in a confessional ever has, but there are some things, he decides, that are better left unsaid.

"What did he make you do? Lie, cheat, steal, kill." Despite the sudden coldness in her voice, she continues to hold his hand.

"I saw no way out of it. I was..." He falters, not knowing how to end that sentence without revealing how pathetically weak he was when it came to the sheriff.

"Stuck?"

"Yes," he says, thinking it an odd word but nonetheless an appropriate one.

For some reason, it makes her smile, albeit sadly. "I know someone who was like that once."

"And did he or she become unstuck?"

"Yes, he did." Djaq lets go his hand and comes slowly to her feet.

"You still haven't told me how you got in here, or how you even knew I was sick," Guy says.

"Will was in Nottingham, with Allan and Much, handing out coin to the poor. They overheard two castle guards talking about you being locked in your room, not eating or sleeping and that the physician, Blight, had visited you and made you howl. When Will told me, I guessed that you might be in trouble. Allan sweet-talked a kitchen girl into finding me these clothes. He is currently outside your door, wearing your guard's uniform."

"And where is the guard?"

"Bound and gagged and presently staring at one of Robin's arrows. Do not worry. He will soon be on a cart headed for York, so I think he will not make trouble for you or for me."

Guy grins remembering that the guard on duty this morning is the one who stabbed him in the leg.

"Promise me," she says, "you will get well and meet Robin, seven nights from today, when the moon next wanes. If you do not get well, I will have to sneak into the castle again and next time I might not be so lucky in getting past the sheriff's guards."

"I will get well and meet Robin. I promise."

Djaq smiles. "Good. Now sleep." Bending gingerly, she lightly kisses him on the cheek. Then, pulling her hood over her head, she turns away and crosses to the door.

She taps three times and pushes up the door latch. Allan, his face partially hidden behind a nose-pieced helmet, opens the door fully and beckons her out into the torch-lit corridor.

"Wait," she tells him. She hurries back to the bed. "I almost forgot." Reaching inside her dress, she loops an outlaw tag over her head and presses it into Guy's hand. "I thought you might like this back."

"Thank you." He curls his fingers around the wooden tag, his eyes blinded by a sudden wash of tears, happy ones this time.

"Look after yourself," she says.

"I will. And Djaq?"

"What is it?"

"Tell Robin mine was the biggest mud pie."

"Sorry?"

Allan hisses, "Djaq, hurry up."

"It doesn't matter," Guy says, waving her away. "I'll tell him myself when I see him."

Djaq slips out the door and Allan locks it behind her.

Warm and drowsy, the outlaw tag hidden under his pillow, Guy closes his eyes.


	9. Trust

**Trust**

Guy kept his promise; the one he made to Djaq. He ate and drank sensibly, minded his injured leg, slept when he could. He marked the days and nights, remembering Djaq's words: meet Robin seven days hence, when the moon next wanes.

Every day, he anxiously anticipated the sheriff's roar of _Gisborne!_ echoing down the torch-lit passageway that led to his bedchamber; but apart from the plod of guards patrolling the castle, the odd burst of laughter, or a sneeze, cough or belch from whoever was standing watch outside his door, Guy heard nothing.

If anyone missed the guard Robin had bound and gagged and shoved on a cart headed for York, doubtless with accompanying threats, they were not making a noise about it.

By the fourth day, with still no sign of Vaisey, Guy began to feel hopeful, jubilant even. With any luck, he could escape the castle without anyone challenging him. Without the sheriff's helmet-swiping, shin-kicking presence, the guards had become lazy and lax. His door was left unlocked and, mostly, unguarded. No doubt they deemed the sheriff's wine-soused master-at-arms incapable of issuing commands or cautioning them on their lack of discipline.

Guy let them think this, keeping up the pretence of drunkenness while diligently pouring every wine jug delivered to his room into an empty chest. He let his beard grow too, giving off the air of a man who no longer cares about his appearance let alone anything else, though he did cave in and wash the ends of his long hair that had dipped into the pail he'd vomited in. That pail, along with his overfull chamberpot, had since been cleared away by a serving girl and later returned clean. Guy didn't need the pail any more.

Curiosity finally overcame fear, and Guy limped about the castle, feigning disinterest in the comings and goings of folk, while secretly hoping to hear mention of the sheriff and his whereabouts.

Weary of being on tenterhooks from sunrise to sunset, he grabbed a serving boy's arm one evening as he passed him outside the Great Hall and asked, "Where's the sheriff?"

The boy stammered that he didn't know, that no one had seen the sheriff or knew where he'd gone.

Guy checked the stables. The sheriff's white mare was not in its stall. The sheriff's groom did not know where his master had gone, or when he would be back.

Guy returned to his bedchamber, frustrated.

He spent the long, cheerless evenings fretting over the deal he'd made with Marian, wondering if it wouldn't be easier simply to remain Vaisey's dog and do his bidding. He could bide his time and then, when the sheriff's plans for power and riches finally came to fruition, take his share and leave. He would run as fast and as far away as he could from everyone who knew or had heard of Guy of Gisborne, Sheriff Vaisey's brutal henchman.

When he wasn't agonising over whether to keep faith with Marian and the outlaws or turn back to the sheriff, he indulged in wild fantasies. He imagined the sheriff falling from his horse and breaking his neck, or a vengeful peasant whacking Vaisey in the head with a spade as the sheriff, giving the toiling man or woman a disdainful glance, rode by, or of him swallowing his fake, gold-shot tooth and choking on it.

At his lowest moments, he relived the day he saw Marian and Robin kissing, when they thought him asleep, safely tucked behind a shielding curtain; and he tortured himself with images of the blood on Djaq's clothes and hands as he blundered backwards, sword in hand. At those times, it was hard not to give into temptation and drink himself into oblivion. To make certain he didn't, he poured every wine jug immediately into the rapidly filling chest. He'd been pissing in it for the past four days.

To silence his moments of doubt and remind himself of happier times, he played with his outlaw tag, turning it over in his hands, running his fingers around its smooth edges and across the carved mark of Robin Hood's gang. At night, he slept with the tag around his neck, pressing into his bare chest whenever he turned onto his front, or clutched in his hand; he hoped it might help him dream of sun-dappled glades and trees, of woodsmoke and laughter rather than the dark suffocating walls of the castle and Sheriff Vaisey's malicious grin and rank breath.

* * *

He jerks awake. Someone is pounding on his bedchamber door.

"Sheriff wants to see you."

Mouth chalk-dry, Guy throws back the coverlet. He glances at the horn-covered window. The sun is high in the sky. What day is it? the sixth day, the seventh? has he missed his meeting with Robin?

"Sir Guy. Are you awake? More banging on the door.

"Yes." Guy swings his legs over the side of the bed, wincing as his bare feet touch the cold flagstones. "Tell the sheriff I'll be with him shortly."

"He's in his bird room," the man behind the door says. "I'll tell him you're on your way."

Heart pounding, Guy fingers the outlaw tag resting on his bare chest. _This is it_. He hopes wherever the sheriff has been these past few days, it has put him in a good mood.

Looping the tag over his head, he shoves it under his pillow. He stands and takes a few unsteady steps towards a grimy-looking glass in the far corner of the room, careful not to put too much weight on his injured leg. He stares at his reflection. Despite the rinse, his hair remains tangled and greasy. His short beard makes him look older than his years and the dark circles under his eyes add to the effect. He touches the thin white scar on his cheek, a legacy of his flight through the forest as he ran to escape Robin's wrath. Glancing down at his bare feet, he eyes the missing big toenail on his right foot, another consequence of his tearing hurry to avoid one of Robin's arrows thudding into his back.

Fear clawing at his insides, wondering if he'll need to use that pail after all, Guy puts on his leathers, their smell a guilt-ridden reminder of his days as the sheriff's cruel and vicious master-at-arms. Whatever happens next, Guy is determined to see those days over.

Taking a deep steadying breath, he opens his bedchamber door and heads down the torch-lit passageway.

* * *

"Ah, my dear boy. Come in, come in." The sheriff waves a ringed hand at Guy and then turns back to one of the many birdcages hanging by a chain from the wooden rafters crisscrossing the ceiling. Opening the cage door, he reaches inside, strokes the tiny bird's head and then wraps a hand around its body, trapping the bird inside a fingered cage.

Guy steps across the threshold, shutting the door behind him.

He hates this room. He hates the musty seed smell and the whiff of bird droppings. And he hates the way the birds hop and flap around their cages, sticking their tiny beaks through the bars and endlessly chirping.

The sheriff eases the bird out the cage and turns to face Guy, appraising him. "Personal stylist on holiday, Gisborne?"

Gritting his teeth, Guy eyes the sheriff's cupped hands, expecting him at any moment to say 'catch', tossing the bird at Guy. Guy will swipe and miss it, of course, whereupon the sheriff will make some oblique reference to Guy's failure to capture a certain Marian bird.

"Perhaps you've been taking lessons from that shaggy monster in Hood's gang...what's his name?

"Little John," Guy supplies, reminding himself that he needs to appear willing if he is to win back the sheriff's trust.

"Yes, that's right...Little John." The sheriff jerks his cupped hands towards Guy. "Catch!"

Without thinking, Guy lunges to catch the feathered offering, a tingle of pain shooting through his injured leg.

Vaisey chortles, his hands still cupped around the tiny bird. "So gullible," he says, shaking his head from side to side. "I'm not surprised those filthy outlaws convinced you to join them."

Scowling, Guy folds his arms across his chest. "I did not join them...at least, I pretended to join them, of course, but I did not—"

"La di da di da." The sheriff opens his hands and the bird flies up to a rafter and sits there, cocking its little head at Guy. "I knew you'd come crawling back, Gisborne. Had a falling out with Robin Hood, did you? Made fun of your hair, your clothes, the way you wash under your arms before you go to bed?"

"No, I—"

"What," the sheriff barks, cutting across him, "did the outlaws offer you that I can't?"

_Friendship. _"Nothing. They had nothing I wanted."

The sheriff walks towards him. Guy tenses. When Vaisey is within arm's reach, he jabs a finger into Guy's chest, poking the slight depression where the wooden outlaw tag would normally rest.

"Who told Hood about those tax monies? Was it Marian? Is she the naughty little bird who twitters about our secrets?"

The sheriff stares unflinchingly into Guy's eyes despite Guy towering over the shorter man.

"No," Guy says, holding the sheriff's gaze, remembering Marian's earlier words. _He thinks you were the one who told Robin about the tax monies._ "No, it was me. I told Robin."

The sheriff steps back a pace, his eyes never leaving Guy's face. "Go on."

"Hood mistrusted me."

"I can't possibly think why."

"I thought," Guy continues, ignoring the sheriff's sarcasm, "that if I told him about the tax monies it would prove I was on his side. I took care not to kill any of your men, though one fool damn near killed me."

"Of course he tried to kill you, you idiot. You were wearing outlaw clothes and brandishing a sword at him."

"I told the guard I was playacting. I had to make it look good."

The sheriff rubs his chin, doubtless trying to work out whether Guy is telling the truth or not. "And did Hood trust you after your heroic efforts?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I tried to kill him."

Crossing his arms, the sheriff gives Guy a withering look. "And let me guess...you failed."

"One of his gang got in my way."

"You tried to kill Robin Hood while his gang were about him. What, did you think they were just going to stand by and watch the entertainment? Gisborne, you're more of an idiot than the most idiotic of village idiots."

Guy feels the familiar flush of humiliation creeping hotly up his neck. "Hood was alone, except for his dim-witted manservant and the Saracen girl. It was too good an opportunity to miss."

"So what happened? Hair got in your eyes. Tripped over a twig perhaps?"

"I underestimated the woman."

Vaisey rolls his eyes. "Don't you always, Gisborne."

The bird on the rafter utters a shrill peep and drops a watery offering onto the toe of Guy's boot.

The sheriff grins. "It's female."

Guy stares at the small, yellowy, paste-like turd, grinding his teeth together in fury. What he wouldn't give to have his broadsword at his hip. An image of Vaisey's disembodied head stuffed into one of his birdcages comes to mind. For now, he has to content himself with the satisfaction of flicking the bird poo onto the sheriff's back, Vaisey having turned around to reach into an open sack of feed.

The sheriff whistles and throws a handful of seed into the offending bird's empty cage. The bird immediately flits down and hops through the open door.

"See, Gisborne." The sheriff shuts the cage door and turns to face Guy. "See how the poor creature returns to the safety of its cage, knowing it will be fed and watered, wanting for nothing, despite the fact it could have made a bid for freedom had it had the sense to fly out the open window."

_You always come crawling back, Gisborne._

Guy shifts uncomfortably.

"Of course," the sheriff continues, "had it headed for the open skies it wouldn't have lasted very long, not after all this time in captivity. Predators you see, Gisborne. With bigger beaks, sharper talons and doubtless more brain cells than this dependant little creature has."

Guy balls his gloveless hands and forces them behind his back. As much as he'd like to smash the sheriff's fake tooth through the back of his head, he must grin and bear the indignities and insults if he is to wheedle his way back into the sheriff's good books so he can spy for the outlaws.

"Talking of escaping birdies," the sheriff says, his mock-fatherly expression dropped for one of barely concealed rage. "It appears the leper bird has escaped her cage, along with her fart of a father. You wouldn't happen to know anything about this, would you, Gisborne?"

"No, how could I? You had me locked in my room and no one has thought to tell me a thing, not even that you'd been away."

At the mention of his absence from the castle, Vaisey's anger dissipates and Guy suspects the sheriff's expedition had been a profitable one.

"Did Hood help her? You know I've long suspected that she and the outlaw are in cahoots."

"No," Guy says, rather more brusquely than he intended. "That is, I doubt Hood would be willing to help the woman who turned her back on their childhood betrothal when she promised herself to me."

"And remind me again, Gisborne, how that worked out for you."

Guy's cheek tingles at the memory of the large-stoned wedding ring smacking into it.

"That is beside the point," he says tightly. "Marian thinks Hood a fool for becoming an outlaw when he could have kept his lands and title if he'd toed the line. The outlaw has nothing to offer her and, as much as Marian defends the peasants, I do not believe she wants to become one of them."

"And this is where you come in, is it?"

"You promised me riches when we have achieved our aims. It is my hope that I might win back Marian's affections by offering to rebuild Knighton Hall."

"This would be the Knighton Hall that you burned down." The sheriff flutters his fingers in imitation of flickering flames.

"Yes. I thought that if I gave her back her home, she might accept me." Guy hates remembering the tears running down Marian's face as she watched her childhood home go up in flames, but from the look on the sheriff's face he thinks it is a convincing enough lie. Right now, he will say anything to distract the sheriff from thoughts of Marian being involved with the outlaws. Not that it will help if she insists on joining in with any of Robin's risky schemes to rob the rich. Too often Guy has been at the wrong end of her cartwheeling, fist throwing prowess and knows she is unlikely to willingly sit in the camp doing her embroidery.

The sheriff crooks a finger at him, says, "Come with me."

"Where are we—"

"Your flighty bird might be in luck, Gisborne, because if the deal I made in London these past few days comes to fruition, we shall be rolling in it, as they say."

The sheriff strides out the door. Eyeing the slimy bird poo on his back and grinning at the prospect of learning sooner rather than later of the sheriff's plans and schemes so he might pass them on to the outlaws, Guy follows.

* * *

They are in the map room, so called because of the enormous table in its centre upon which sits a raised map, the borders of England, Scotland and Wales carved into the painted wooden relief, along with flags denoting some of England's larger castles, including Nottingham.

It's a step up from the nose-wrinkling bird room, but still as uncomfortable, there being no decent chairs to sit on. By now, Guy's injured leg is burning and throbbing and he would dearly love to rest it. However, it's an aggravation he's willing to endure if it means the sheriff is about to give him some juicy piece of information that he can impress Robin Hood with, as well as Marian and Djaq.

The sheriff saunters around the map table, while Guy shifts from leg to leg trying to curb his impatience and appear bored and uninterested. However, by Vaisey's fifth circuit, he plants himself in the sheriff's way and asks, "What deal did you make in London?"

The sheriff turns to the map table and runs a loving hand over Nottinghamshire and its surrounds.

"Let's just say, Gisborne, that while you were capering about in the forest, trying to work out whether green suits you or not, our plans have a taken a leap forward."

Guy eyes the map table. He imagines flipping it over, on top of the sheriff, flattening him. "You want England," he'll shout. "Well here it is!" But the table weighs too much and Guy recalls Prince John's threat to raze Nottingham should the sheriff die an unnatural death.

"In what way, may I ask?"

"You may indeed ask, Gisborne."

The sheriff resumes his strolling around the table. Guy masks his frustration by picking dirt out of his fingernails.

"Success!" the sheriff roars, making Guy almost jump out of his skin. The sheriff thumps the table making the little flags quiver.

"My lord?"

"Success!" the sheriff again bellows. "This time, Gisborne, we shall not fail because..."

"Because," Guy prompts.

"Because this time—"

Three loud knocks on the door interrupt whatever the sheriff was about to say.

Guy takes up pacing himself, despite his aching leg, hoping the sheriff will quickly deal with the intrusion and get back to revealing his plans. He hears a few hurried whispers and then the sheriff turns back to Guy and says, "Sorry, Gisborne. I'm afraid I need to be elsewhere. We will return to this matter another time."

With that, the sheriff leaves the room.

Guy thumps the map table, squashing Nottingham's flag.

* * *

Today is the seventh day; the day he promised to meet Robin.

Expecting Marian to accompany the outlaw, Guy calls for a boy to scrape the beard from his face. He also filches a small knob of soap from the sheriff's bath chamber and washes his long hair, combing it with his fingers to get rid of the tangles. It felt much nicer when Djaq ran her gentle fingers through it, but at least he's presentable now. Doubtless his pallor will improve once he's outside in the summer sun.

The sheriff is in the treasury, his desk covered in parchments.

"Bit busy, Gisborne."

"Am I free to leave the castle?" Guy asks.

The sheriff carries on scratching black ink across the parchment in front of him. Guy is too far away to read what it says.

Thinking the sheriff hasn't heard him, Guy repeats the question, adding, "I carelessly left my sword in the cave I was hiding in. I should like to go and fetch it, with your leave of course."

"Can't you go to the armourer and get another one?" The sheriff dips his quill in the inkwell, glancing at Guy as he does so.

"That one was perfectly balanced, the best sword I've ever possessed."

"Not helped you catch Robin Hood, though, has it? Oh, go on then." The sheriff waves a dismissive hand at Guy; fortunately, not the one holding the inky quill. "Fetch it if you must. Will you go alone?"

"Yes. I have no need for guards. The cave is a long way off Hood's usual stamping ground. Why do you ask?"

"Because yesterday you looked like one of those foul drunken beggars who hang around outside the castle hoping for kitchen scraps and today you're all preened and smelling of," the sheriff sniffs, his eyes narrowing, "_my_ soap."

"I was unwell and locked in my room so my appearance was of no importance. But as I am to pass through the streets of Nottingham, I thought that—"

"Are you going to meet our escaped birdie?" the sheriff interrupts, his eyes narrowing further. "Is that why you've scrubbed yourself up?"

"No, I am not meeting Marian. I don't even know where she is." Guy thinks he sounds sufficiently aggrieved to allay the sheriff's suspicions. By God, he is aggrieved; not because he doesn't know where Marian is, but because he does.

The sheriff grins cruelly. "Perhaps she's raking through the blackened remains of Knighton Hall, trying to work out what colour curtains she'd like."

Resisting the temptation to snatch the quill out the sheriff's hand and stab him in the eye with it, Guy again asks if he may leave the castle, adding a grovelling 'my Lord Sheriff' at the end.

"Very well. Boy!"

The sheriff's page darts out from a shadowy corner of the room, startling Guy.

"Tell the stable master to ready Sir Guy's big black brute of a horse, will you."

The boy dips his head and hurries off.

"Wouldn't want you walking with that bad leg of yours, now would we, Gisborne."

"No. Thank you." Guy lingers for a moment, hoping the sheriff might continue where he left off last evening, in the map room.

"Oh, and don't get lost," the sheriff says, dripping red sealing wax onto the folded parchment. "My men have got better things to do than go scouring the forest for you."

"I will not get lost."

The sheriff presses his seal to the parchment, lays it aside, and picks up a further scroll.

Realising he is dismissed, Guy turns and limps out the door.

* * *

"You're alone?" Robin asks.

Guy stiffly dismounts. He spreads his arms. "As you see." He takes a few paces towards Robin and his men.

Will sidles towards Djaq, until their arms are touching. Much bites his lip, looking from Guy to Robin. John, staff in hand, scowls. Allan stands at ease, arms loosely folded, but his keen eyes flick between the two men.

"Where's Marian?" Guy asks.

"At the camp," Robin says.

"Good. See to it she stays there. The sheriff has his suspicions about her and if he catches her with you lot you know what will happen to her."

"Marian is her own woman. It's not my place to tell her what to do or not to do."

It is clear from the way Robin says it that he's tried doing this before and failed.

"I agreed to take her place in the castle, be your spy, if she would leave. Fat lot of good that is if she insists on taking part in your hair-brained schemes and gets caught."

"And are you going to be our spy?" Robin asks, ignoring the latter part of Guy's remark.

Guy looks at Djaq, notices her encouraging nod. "Yes, I will your spy."

"Hang on," Allan says. "What's to stop Guy from pretending to be our spy but really spying for the sheriff?"

"Exactly," Much says, nodding enthusiastically. "I always said I didn't believe he was really on our side."

"Nah, you didn't," Allan says. "You said, and I quote: 'At last, someone who appreciates my cooking'."

"Well...that is. I really don't think..." Much splutters into silence, clearly unable to offer up a suitable defence.

"Robin?" Will shoots a sideways glance at Djaq.

"Allan's right," Robin says at length. "Why should we trust you?"

"Because Marian is with you. You know I would not do anything that might endanger her life."

"You mean the way you didn't endanger Djaq's life?"

"I didn't mean to hurt her. You know that."

Looking Guy straight in the eye, Robin says, "If you tell the sheriff where our camp is, I will kill you."

Remembering the narrow escape he had in the cave, saved only by Marian's timely intervention, Guy knows the outlaw means it.

"I have been in the castle for more than a week. If I wanted to betray you, wouldn't I have done it by now?"

"Very well," Robin says, conceding Guy's point. "We'll take it that you're on our side." With that, he turns and walks over to John, hand outstretched. Giving Robin a sour look, Little John reaches under his thick fur cloak and produces Guy's broadsword.

Robin offers it to Guy, hilt first. "You might need this."

Tentatively, Guy takes the sword. He sees the blade is clean and wonders who it was who wiped Djaq's blood from it. "Thank you." He slides it into his empty scabbard. At least he'll be able to prove to the sheriff that he did indeed go to the forest to collect his sword.

"So," Robin says. "Is there anything we need to know?"

Guy licks his lips, a small voice in his head telling him to turn around and forget the outlaws, take the easy way out. "If the sheriff finds out I'm aiding you he'll hang me."

"He won't hear it from us," Robin assures him.

"Stay here," Djaq tells Will. She walks towards Guy, stopping an arm's-length away. "You came to us," she says, tilting her chin up so she can stare into his eyes, "and saw there is another way to live, a better way. If you help us defeat the sheriff, it can be that way again for you."

"And if the sheriff finds out what I'm doing and sentences me to death?"

"Robin will come and save you. We all will."

From the look on Robin's face, Guy doubts that will happen.

He turns his attention back to Djaq, who is still staring up at him, her eyes silently pleading with him to do the right thing. He thinks of the time he spent with her in the forest, searching for edible herbs and fungi and medicinal plants; the things she taught him, the stories she told, the way she forgave him when he got things wrong because she knew he'd tried his best. Vaisey doesn't forgive him when he gets things wrong. Vaisey smacks him around the head, or rants at him, often in front of others. He humiliates him. If the sheriff had been his father he would have hung the wet bed sheet – the one Djaq folded and carefully hid under his bed – out the castle window for the world to see, shaming him.

He snaps his attention back to Robin, decision made.

"The sheriff has been to London. Apparently, he made some sort of deal there. I do not know what it was or who it was with, but I will find out, and when I do I will tell you." Guy turns to Allan. "We can use the same messaging system that you and I used."

Allan shuffles his feet, clearly uncomfortable about that particular time in his life.

"Now," Guy says. "I should get back to the castle before I am missed." _Not that anyone is going to miss me._ The thought makes him sad. The thought that Marian is no longer at the castle also makes him sad, even though he is glad she is far away from the sheriff. When she was there, his life was bearable. _Please God let the sheriff's fall come soon. _

Guy limps towards his horse. He is just about to climb into the saddle, when a hand grasps his wrist.

"You appear discomforted," Djaq says. "Did you do everything I asked?"

Guy lets go of the pommel. "Yes. I kept the poultice on as you instructed me and rebound the leg with fresh cloth after I took it off."

"And have you checked the wound since?"

"No. I did not think to."

Djaq makes a small tutting noise and shakes her head in annoyance. "Men. You think you are invincible. I will look at it now." Her tone of voice, as well as the tight grip she has on his wrist, tells Guy she will not take no for an answer.

Guy glances at the outlaws. He notices Robin's restraining hand on Will's arm.

"Over there in the trees if you are sensitive to them seeing your undergarments," Djaq says, sotto voce, so the others cannot hear her.

Guy couldn't care less whether Robin and his men see his undergarments, but he'd prefer to avoid the witticisms he is sure will come his way once his leathers are down around his ankles. "The trees would be preferable." He nods towards the outlaws. "I can do without their smirks and idiotic jests."

Djaq walks back to Robin and the others, explaining what she is about to do, saying they can return to the camp ahead of her if they wish. Will shakes his head, Robin too.

"I'm sure there's no need for this," Guy says as they make their way into the thick foliage at the side of the forest track. "I am aching because I have not ridden for many days."

"You will not be much use as a spy if you end up losing your leg," Djaq points out.

Guy pictures the sheriff grinning at him and saying, "Hop to it, Gisborne, hop to it."

Once they are sufficiently out of both eye and earshot, Djaq tells Guy to pull down his breeches. He does so, feeling uncomfortable. From the look on Will's face, it was clear the outlaw doesn't like the idea of Djaq being alone with Guy. At any moment, Guy expects to see the angry young man burst through the trees.

Djaq lightly slaps the back of his hand. "Stay still."

"I am not happy about standing around in Sherwood with my breeches down."

"You need to relax. You're on our side now, remember." Djaq runs her fingers over the ugly stitches, the scabbed flesh. "It is healing well. No signs of infection." She rewinds the binding around his thigh. "You will have a nasty scar, but at least it is not where it can be seen." She comes to her feet, appraises him. "You're a good-looking man. And if you become a good man then you will find there are plenty of women who would be happy to be your wife."

"I do not want 'plenty of women'. I want—"

Djaq touches her fingers to his lips. "You cannot have her, you know that. You must let her go, find another."

Guy knocks her arm aside. "There can be no other. Are we done?"

Djaq nods and Guy pulls up his leathers, buckles his belt and sheathes his sword.

He takes no more than two steps when a shout goes up, quickly followed by more shouts and the metallic clash of sword meeting sword.

Djaq grabs Guy's arm, her face filled with both alarm and accusation. "You lied. You did not come alone." Drawing her blade, she pushes past him.

"Wait," Guy hisses, grabbing her arm, yanking her into his chest. "I swear. I came alone."

"Then you were followed." She tries to shake out of his grasp. "Let go of me."

Guy tightens his grip, jerking her down to the ground. "We mustn't show ourselves. Not until we know what we're dealing with."

Djaq bites her lip and then nods in agreement. With Guy still holding her arm, they steal through the trees towards the spot where they left the outlaws. Crouching behind a thicket, they peer through a tangle of leaves and branches.

"Mercenaries," Guy whispers. "They must have tracked me. I didn't hear them. The sheriff's fool guards could never have kept that quiet."

Robin and his men are in a tight circle, arms raised, their weapons on the ground.

"I knew it!" Much exclaims. "I knew he would betray us. I bet his leg's fine. He must have a soft spot for—ow!"

Kicking him in the shins, Robin tells his manservant to be quiet.

"We have to help them," Djaq says, attempting to pull out of Guy's powerful grip.

"No," he says. "Not here, not now. There are too many of them. We'll only end up prisoners as well. This is the sheriff's doing. I thought I had gained his trust, but I was wrong."

Arms bound behind their backs, the outlaws start walking in the direction of Nottingham. Each one has a mercenary, dagger in hand, at his back, with the exception of Robin, who has a man either side of him as well as one behind. At the rear of the group, a single mercenary leads Guy's snorting, agitated destrier.

Several times, Will glances behind him, until his captor thumps him in the middle of his back, telling him to face forwards and keep moving, threatening to gouge his eyes out if he turns around again.

Guy gives Djaq a sideways glance. There are tears in her eyes. Letting go of her arm, he pushes through the undergrowth, Djaq closely behind him.

When they reach the forest track, she asks, "Why did they not search for you? The sheriff must have described you to them."

He shrugs. "The sheriff doesn't give a damn about me. It's Hood's head he wants on a spike." Crouching, he runs a gloveless hand over the loose soil.

_Tell the stable master to ready Sir Guy's big black brute of a horse, will you._

"Marked hooves," she says.

Standing, Guy nods miserably.

Djaq toes the scuffed earth, where the outlaws and the mercenaries had briefly fought. "We must go to the camp, tell Marian what has happened."

Guy's heart sinks. He has made another blunder and this time it won't be Vaisey smacking him about the head.


End file.
